


Afterlight

by petalade (lups)



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Summer Camp, Gen, Minor Character Death, Minor Original Character(s), Multi, Murder Mystery, Mystery, Still Faerun, Supernatural Elements, angus ropes a bunch of strangers into solving a murder mystery with him: the fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-15
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2019-04-23 11:21:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 28,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14331378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lups/pseuds/petalade
Summary: Late last August, three Extreme Teen Adventurers stumbled upon the remains of a missing local woman in the woods surrounding their campground. Now a month shy of the anniversary of their gruesome discovery, Angus McDonald is back at summer camp and determined to uncover the truth behind the unusual circumstances surrounding Maureen Miller’s death—with or without the cooperation of the adults around him.





	1. Prelude

**Author's Note:**

> _afterlight_  
>  noun \ af·ter·light \ ˈaf-tər-ˌlīt \
> 
> A later revelation or realization; understanding of a situation or event after it has happened or developed; hindsight.

_One Year Ago_  


It was another lazy afternoon spent wandering the outskirts of their campgrounds with nothing but a broken compass to occupy their youngest adventurer's fidgety hands and a dog-eared Extreme Teen activity booklet shared between them.

Their options had been limited ever since camp wrapped up nearly a week and a half ago, leaving the three children who remained behind with no choice but to create their own fun. They’d made a routine of heading out just after lunch to enjoy the final days of summer to the fullest before it was time to say goodbye to the forest and each other for another year.

The book (Mavis's, because her handwriting was the neatest) was worn and already completely filled in, but all they’d really needed from it was the weekly activities detailed in the summary chapter. They took turns picking activities to redo and trashed the boring or complicated ones, occasionally modifying the games and projects that required a large group to suit the current dynamic better.

Entertaining themselves with recycled material wasn’t exactly _fun,_ but it was more a mercy towards Mavis’s father than anything. It was no secret that their camp leader had absolutely no idea how to entertain his children when he was off-duty, despite his best efforts. Angus had suspected for a while now that his own presence—under the guise of an extended playdate—was just another way to mitigate their boredom for the extra time before they were sent back to their mother.

That was fine, though. He liked hanging out with Mavis and Mookie, and he enjoyed seeing how the camp staff interacted with each other behind the scenes (even if they did pull goofs on him pretty often now).

Today was a continuation of yesterday’s attempts to collect materials for a nature collage from Week 3’s outline, and Mavis made sure to keep a watchful eye on her brother so he couldn't dart off and pocket a fistful of poison ivy like the day before.

They paused so Mookie could crouch to pick at a half-buried pinecone. It was identical to the thousands they’d already walked by—with the exception that this one had its own unique coat of grime courtesy of the muddy puddle it was poking out from.

“Whaddya figure this’ll get me?”  

Angus tried to suppress a giggle at the way Mavis’s face scrunched when she accepted Mookie’s now-grimy hand again. “I think a tactile theme will really make your collage stand out, Mookie,” he encouraged.

“Have you chosen a theme yet, Angus?” Mavis swung a canvas bag in her other hand as they resumed their pace, already a quarter full with various flowers and buds.

Angus shrugged. “Not yet. I thought it might be neat to collect sap for color comparison, but I forgot to bring something to store the samples in.”

Mavis hummed thoughtfully in response. He knew sap on pasteboard probably wouldn't have made for a pretty picture anyway, but he'd already made a more by-the-book collage back in July to take home, so the risk of screwing this one up didn’t bother him much.

“Feathers might look nice,” she suggested after a beat. “If you don’t have enough by the time we head back, I’ll share some of my stuff with you.”

Angus grinned at her offer. “Thanks, Maev, I—”

“Whadda‘bout me? Whadda‘bout me?”

Regret was already etched on Mavis’s face as she recognized her error. Her younger brother now bounced on the spot, tugging at her insistently. “Ya gotta share w’me too!”

Mookie never failed to latch onto the keyword ‘share’ whenever it was so much as implied. It didn’t matter who, where, or what was being offered—if Mookie didn’t get his cut, there would be hell to pay. According to Mavis, it was the reason why the Highchurch family had been issued a lifetime ban at the Costco in the next town over the previous year (and, by extension, the reason why there was never enough marshmallows on s’mores night now that their camp leader had no way of buying them in surplus).

Angus watched Mavis start to mouth an objection, but she quickly cut herself off as Mookie whined a shrill note that warned of oncoming tears or violence, or both. The battle was lost from the moment she’d slipped up. “Fine. But I’m keeping the nicer ones for myself.”

This answer seemed to pacify the youngest adventurer, the threat of a meltdown quickly forgotten. Angus offered an apologetic smile but Mavis simply shrugged it off, having already recovered from cutting her losses.

They were now long past the point where the campgrounds would be in sight, which was highlighted on the first page of their Extreme Teen Adventurer handbook as a big, bold _no-no_ for their age group (or: the non-teen teen adventurers) without an adult accompanying them. Angus was typically one to observe rules, but they were all thrown out the window—with encouragement from their camp leader, alarmingly enough—once it was just the three of them.

Angus didn’t doubt that these woods were very easy to get lost in, but even with their compass's needle twisted beyond repair courtesy of Mookie he wasn’t worried at all. Mavis had once said that their father settled in the area when her brother was still a baby, and she and Mookie knew the forest as well as they knew their own names from how often they’d visit. He’d trusted in their familiarity and instinct dozens of times now, and it hadn’t failed to bring them home yet.

The rule was, uh, definitely also in place to keep kids from getting eaten by coyotes and stuff, Angus was sure, and he had very little reassurance on _that_ front. But Merle insisted he ‘had an in’ with nature, and Mavis and Mookie had a similarly concerning amount of nonchalance about the possibility of encountering wild animals too, so there wasn’t really anything Angus could do but hope and pray that he wouldn’t die horribly everytime he left the campgrounds.

He’d done his research though and, thankfully, the lack of bear-related fatalities recorded in the near decade that the camp had been in operation did a better job at quelling his fears than word of mouth. Besides that, he'd never seen anything larger than the occasional squirrel in all his years of camp. It was the proximity to town that scared off deer and the like, he figured— _that and the presence of screaming children,_ the thought crossed his mind as Mookie loudly celebrated the discovery of what had to be his 30th rock in ten minutes.

As they crossed into a small clearing, Mavis let go of Mookie’s hand on the condition that he stay within sight. She squinted and adjusted her glasses with a small _“huh”._

Angus tried to follow her line of sight, but whatever landmark she had narrowed in on was completely invisible to his untrained eye. “Something wrong?”

“No, no,” she dismissed with a wave, “didn’t think we were already this far out is all. We should probably head back soon.”

He nodded and followed her to the center of the clearing. They sat down in the grass together and began carefully removing their collections from their bags to see how much progress they’d made. Mookie was a blur of limbs swinging on some low branches on the fringes of the clearing, much too busy to join in their collaborate effort, but Mavis set some of the droopier flowers aside for him anyway.

Angus frowned once he realized he’d only found a lone, scraggly feather all the while. Mavis stopped her attempts to tie tufts of clovers-that-might-have-four-leaves-if-you-look-hard-enough together to give him a pat on the back.

“We’ll get Mookie to pitch in too,” she reassured, though neither were certain what his hoard would bring to the table. On good days, there was bottle caps. On bad days, it was dead crickets. It was always a toss-up with Mookie.

They talked about the types of flowers Mavis had collected for a while, making a game out of trying to remember their proper scientific names. Neither were great at botany though, so they’d hit a dead end pretty soon and ended up in a back-and-forth of reciting the fanciest binomial names they could think of off the top of their heads. Angus’s pronunciation was a bit better, but they both fumbled in places pretty evenly.

Mookie hovered behind them for a bit, chiming in with gibberish that might’ve sounded Latin if you’d never heard Latin before, but quickly lost interest and went back to playing by himself.

They were just about finished packing up when Mookie finally sauntered back to them for good. He held his backpack to his chest and shuffled his feet with a cheeky grin spread across his face.

“I foun’ lotsa cool rocks over ‘ere,” Mookie’s neck craned at an awkward angle to motion behind himself, “but I left some ‘cause daddy’s always sayin’ ya gotta leave a bit so nature can make more.”

“Pops meant seeds and stuff, not— not rocks… rocks don’t grow—”

“Well y’ can’t take any!” Mookie snapped back before his sister could finish, “‘cause I found ‘em _first._ ”

For the umpteenth time today, all Mavis could respond with was an exasperated sigh. Apparently the rules of sharing didn’t go both ways. Angus didn’t know what it was like to have siblings, but he greatly admired her unending patience when it came to dealing with Mookie’s shenanigans.

He helped Mavis to her feet as Mookie scrambled to collect the leftover flowers Mavis had left out for him, insisting they both turn around so he could shovel it into his bag without them peeking at what he’d collected so far, before starting their trek back to camp.

 

 

The walk back was punctuated by how sore Angus realized his feet were when he’d stood up in the meadow. Mavis was right—they’d definitely wandered farther than usual today. He looked forward to kicking off his shoes and finding a place in the den to curl up and read once they finished their collages.

He was relieved when he could see the glow of the Highchurch estate’s windows through the treeline. The rustic two-story cottage was the only structure on the expanse of the campgrounds, save for a small pavilion and a utility shed tucked in a corner by the far treeline nearer the road. It was larger than any of the other cottages leading up to the campgrounds and had far too many spare rooms for a man who lived by himself most of the year, but the space was perfect for housing the half-dozen guests that cycled through at any given time, including a few of the camp counselors (and the young campers when the weather was too awful to brave out in a tent).

They crossed the hiker’s trail that they’d elected not to take—they weren’t amateurs, after all, they were proud _Extreme Teen Adventurers—_ and cut through the backyard to let themselves in. The sun was just beginning to set, and Angus could smell what was either spaghetti-o’s or canned ravioli simmering on the stove for them.

Mookie rushed on ahead as he and Mavis took a moment to bask in the cool relief that the central air conditioning offered. They exchanged a knowing look as they heard Mookie screech something unintelligible followed by the loud _thunk_ of Merle being tackled to the floor.

There was a deep, bellowing laugh in addition to Merle’s from farther in the house, and Angus knew the guest had to be Mr. Burnsides by process of elimination, because if it had been Mr. Bluejeans then that would mean Miss Lup was here too, and Miss Lup would rather die than suffer them a meal made by the good ol’ Chef of Boyardee (Angus quite liked the classic beefaroni, but he feared Miss Lup would combust on the spot if she ever heard him admit it).

“Hello sirs,” Angus greeted as he followed Mavis into the den just in time to see Magnus lift Mookie into the air with ease.

“Ango! Maevy!” Magnus shouted over Mookie’s shrieks of laughter as he effortlessly spun the eight-year-old above his head. “What’s shakin’? You guys have fun today?”

“Sure did.” Mavis responded without much zeal, and Angus could tell she was just as tired as he was. He watched as she crossed the room to half-murmur a greeting to her father, kissing him on the cheek before depositing her canvas bag on the handcrafted Burnsides’ original coffee table and slumping onto the adjacent couch. Angus followed suit, albeit a little less casually, and minus the kiss because that would’ve been more than a little weird, even as a goof.

By now, Magnus had set Mookie back on his feet and the rest meandered over to where they’d just sat. Magnus ruffled Angus’s hair as he leaned over the back of the couch, and they all chatted about the day. Merle reluctantly let Mookie climb onto his lap on the recliner and swatted his hands away from the reclining mechanism as he gave Angus and Mavis a pop quiz on signs of poisonous flora—mostly for Mookie’s benefit after the poison ivy incident, but of course he wasn’t paying attention in the slightest. At some point, Magnus had gotten them each a cool glass of ice water from the kitchen, and Angus hadn’t realized how parched he was until then.

It was a while before someone piped up about being hungry and they all relocated to the kitchen, taking their scavenged goods with them. Poster board, glue and a surplus of half-emptied containers of glitter and rhinestone awaited them on the island counter.

“Woah there! Hold it, fireball, we gotta eat first!” Merle chuckled as Mookie scrambled up a barstool with his backpack and immediately began lavishing his paper with too much white glue and and an excess of star-shaped glitter flakes. “Alright, I guess we’re doing show n’ tell time first?”

Magnus had his back to them as he filled their bowls—mystery solved, it was spaghetti-o’s—but laughed at the familiar commotion behind him.

Angus and Mavis joined Mookie at the counter, Mavis carefully emptying her canvas bag onto the blank paper in front of her first. She rearranged the flowers on the page and explained her vision for the collage, Merle huffing a noise of approval through his nose and nodding along as she went on about seasonal variations.

Angus was next, and though his collection was… lacking, it was met with the same reception. He’d found a few ferns with feather-like qualities to add to his mix but no more of the genuine article. Angus knew the three of them could’ve each presented a handful of dirt and Merle still would’ve praised their efforts, but the compliments made him bashful nonetheless. He decided to keep the feather he found as a bookmark rather than glue it down.

Magnus set their food down on a separate table to avoid spill-related accidents and joined them in time to catch Mookie’s presentation as the youngest adventurer was just finished announcing,

“—‘n I gotta bunch a’ crunchy stuff!”

Mookie revealed his secret hoard with a swift and unceremonious upturning of his backpack, dumping its contents onto the island counter with more than a few rocks and pinecones missing their trajectory and tumbling onto the floor. Most of the room recoiled at the loud clatter of stone hitting laminate, and Angus caught Magnus’s brief look of horror at the damage one caused to the leg of an end table that must’ve been another Burnsides’ original.

“W-wow... that’s great, buddy!” Magnus squeaked out after too long a pause. He knelt to clean up the clutter that had fallen, and the way he ran a hand over the chip in the wood on his way down could hardly be considered subtle.

His display of carpenterly concern over a little scuff was usually met with a remark from one of two parties—but neither Angus or Merle could say a word in the moment, full attention demanded elsewhere.

Despite gravity’s best efforts, a small handful of goods had managed to stick their landing on the counter. The object of their curiosity was in the dead center of Mookie’s pile, out of place between all the pebbles and tree nuts and drying glitter. A scrutinous eye could easily tell that it was no ordinary rock from the color and texture.

In fact, it was unmistakably—  

Angus gulped back a breath and adjusted his glasses, Merle mirroring the action.

_Yep, that’s the real deal._

It was a huge chunk of bone. A vertebrae, to be exact.

He was in awe. His mouth suddenly felt dry again. Mavis and Mookie either didn’t notice, or didn’t understand what was in front of them and kept babbling back and forth to Magnus on the floor, but Angus could hardly hear them over the blood drumming in his ears.

It was common knowledge to many, by way of the occasional brag or clever remark, that Angus was a very bright little boy. He knew a lot more than the average ten-year-old, and as an aspiring detective-to-be, he’d read enough books in his life to know a great deal about anatomy among a vast number of other subjects that would one day aid him on the job.

He knew there were very few woodland animals that had lumbar vertebrae that large, and even rarer that _shape,_ and this knowledge led him to a conclusion that both fascinated and shook him to the core all at once.

Almost compulsively in his morbid curiosity, he reached out to touch it—

—only for Merle to snatch it up first. The older man’s expression was fixed in something grim and cold that Angus had never seen before, which more or less confirmed his suspicions.

A sudden adrenaline he could only describe as excitement bubbled within him, barely contained on the surface.

“Sir, is that—”

“ _Well,_ sure seems like you all worked hard today! Go on and chow down before it gets cold, we can get back to this later!”

Angus’s voice had barely been a whisper that was swallowed up and quickly forgotten when he was spoken over.

Merle’s tone was a little too chipper, slipping too far into his camp leader persona than usual in the company of his own family, but neither Mookie nor Mavis caught on as they were ushered to the dining table, abandoning their collages and collections.

Magnus, however, was alerted to the fact that something was wrong. He was at Merle’s side in a flash and they shared a look when Merle carefully unfurled his hands around the bone, eyes wide with an emotional complexity that certainly did not match Angus’s.

With a silent tension brewing, the situation was starting to feel realer by the minute. His mind jumped at a dizzying pace to the extremes of every murder mystery he’d ever read—from unhinged cannibals that devoured trespassers to the tragic murder-suicides of former lovers to convoluted revenge plots gone horribly, horribly wrong. He couldn't be sure that there was a story even half as interesting here, but desire to know _more_ gnawed at him all the same.

“—is it _human?”_

He hadn’t meant to finish his question from earlier, but it slipped out like a sigh that had lingered in his lungs far too long, too eager to present itself. Angus made an effort to cover his mouth, but the damage was done. Their gazes were drawn to where he was still gawking, and his head lowered in anticipation of being scolded—

Instead, a rough and familiar hand came up to ruffle his hair.

“Just go and— go eat your pasta, Ango...”

Magnus’s words were soft and seemed to pity that Angus had managed to grasp what the other children hadn't, but there was something else in the tone that Angus couldn’t quite parse. “We’ll handle this, just leave it to the adults...”  

It wasn’t what he’d braced for, and that had thrown him off a bit. Still, he didn’t appreciate being patronized or dismissed so easily. He raised his head to give a deft protest of _that’s ageist, sir,_ but—

 _Oh._ Suddenly, he couldn’t find his voice.

Not with the way Magnus’s eyes were glassy now, staring past him and Merle and the kitchen to somewhere far, far away.

Merle was no longer making an effort to put on a calm facade for his benefit anymore. He had a hand on Magnus’s arm, muttering something hushed that Angus couldn’t quite hear through the distraction of his own fluttering thoughts.

He tried to gather the courage to open his mouth and say something more, but the way Merle's eyes knowingly darted to him warned not to. “Go on, kid,” his voice was brisk and low as he echoed Magnus’s suggestion more forcefully.

But Angus stood his ground, if only because he didn’t recognize the command for what it was through the fuzz in his brain. Being a spectator of the exchange felt _wrong_ , and as his stomach knotted in unease at the strangeness of it all, it hit him—

Something was _off,_ and he mentally kicked himself for being so caught up in the moment that he hadn't noticed it sooner.

Because... wouldn’t it have been more in-line for the Magnus Burnsides he knew to casually wonder if the bone was from the leftovers of the spiced cranberry pot roast Lup had made earlier in the week?

Merle had studied medicine, and Angus was a boy genius with a few too many crime novels tucked away in his luggage upstairs, but what had clued in _Magnus_ so quickly? No, it wasn’t just Magnus—even with his history, it was also absurd on Merle’s end to leap to the same conclusion borne of his hopeful imagination without any shred of skepticism.

They were both treating this too seriously for how little context there was. He’d been ready to counter their doubts, ready to regurgitate his encyclopedic knowledge of human skeletal structures to catch them up, but he hadn’t _needed_ to.

There was an unnatural escalation in their reactions that didn’t make any sense, and the question of _why_ burned under Angus’s skin. This new mystery battled for priority with his initial curiosity of the bone itself—hell, he couldn’t be sure the two were mutually exclusive, which only made it all the more compelling.

However, any urge to prod them for answers was overpowered by the increasing discomfort of seeing one of his favorite camp counselors looking so overwhelmed and vulnerable in that moment that made his mind scream in warning to turn away, look away, _run away._

And so, in his weakness, he did just that.

Angus’s body felt like dead weight as he slipped from the barstool to join Mavis and Mookie at the table, mind bogged down now by _whatever that was_. If his friends had tried addressing him at any point, he hadn’t heard them. All he could do was sulk alone.

He gave himself a humble ten seconds to feel ashamed at the insensitivity of his initial giddiness before switching gears to focus on how _beyond annoyed_ he was at the current circumstances.

Were he a particular fictional kid cop, _this_ would’ve been his sensational breakthrough moment at the very beginning of a series that would span to chronicle his entire career as a adolescent crime-stopping prodigy. He'd studied for this and could help, he _wanted_ to help, he was so curious and eager and _ready_ —but he'd hesitated, fumbled it and fled after failing to get his brain to work in conjunction with his mouth to assert himself in a vital moment. When push came to shove, he’d blown his chances right off the bat.

No—to be fair to himself, he probably never had a chance at all. He knew exactly why they were keeping him out of the loop, why they refused to confide in him.

It was easy to forget the unspoken divide between them when they were constantly goofing around, unfiltered in his presence. But reflecting on the last few minutes had made him embarrassingly conscious of the fact that he was still a child, and only regarded as such at the end of the day. A genius, perhaps, and three grade levels above his peers, but still only ten years old—which, for whatever reason, overruled that he was the best-equipped person in the room to handle this _incredibly specific_ situation.

He hated that his age denied him the trust and honesty he felt they owed in return for all the talents they _knew_ he could provide, if only they’d bothered to ask.

He hated that he already knew that, even if he'd been brave enough to push, his stubbornness would've only earned him a _time-out._

_It wasn’t fair._

He barely noticed as the conversation around him dulled to a low droning that was accompanied by footsteps shuffling in and out of the room, low murmurs of phone calls being made, an eventual knock on the door. Some questions, a gentle hand on his shoulder that came and went, the escalating panic from Mavis when the creeping dread that hung over the room became apparent even to her.

Angus didn’t touch his dinner that night.

 

* * *

 

They were sent to bed as dusk began to fall, nature collages long forgotten. A neighbor had been summoned to watch over them as their guardians tried to sort things out. It was time enough for Angus to clear his head and steel himself and focus on the current mystery rather than waste energy on one that was decidedly out of his reach for now.

He'd been ready to forsake Fate in his prior frustration for teasing him with an impossible opportunity before he'd calmed and remembered that other methods of investigation were still at his disposal, even if Merle and Magnus were a dead end.

Earlier, Merle had pulled Mavis and him aside and asked them to remember anything they could: where they’d gone that day, which direction they walked in, and if there were any landmarks they could recall passing, all in an effort to narrow down the path they’d need to retrace. It was through this line of questioning that an innocent enough conversation from earlier in the day was forever soured by the implications it had in retrospect.

_"I foun’ lotsa cool rocks over ‘ere."_

His stomach lurched when he’d realized Mookie had probably found it, _and more,_ in the clearing. They’d sat and played with flowers a dozen yards away from a crime scene that afternoon without a clue.

He’d waited to vocalize his suspicions once Mavis was out of earshot, not wanting to alarm her when she’d only had the vaguest idea of what was happening.  

Merle took the information in stride, comforting Angus with words he didn’t need before sending him off again. “It’s probably just a prank, kid, don’t worry too much. Shitty delinquents leaving pork bone out in the woods to scare the crud outta the hikers or somethin’ stupid like that. We’ll get to the bottom of this.”

 _But we both know you don’t believe that, sir._ Angus held his tongue, too tired to argue the facts either way. He needed to remain cooperative, careful not to test Merle’s patience or else risk being excluded from the already limited updates on the situation as they trickled through. He’d simply nodded and returned to bed.

He bided his time and waited for the other two to fall asleep before he made a move. Mookie was out cold one-third of the way through _The Land Before Time_ , which had been thrown on early in the night to mask the sound of whatever was going on downstairs. The younger boy was now happily snoring away, sprawled on his stomach in a twist of blankets.

It was a little harder to tell when Mavis finally passed out. She’d had her back to them the whole night, shoulders occasionally shuddering with a sob. The CRT television on the far dresser was the only light source in the room, and it took a while for Angus’s eyes to adjust so he could watch for the rise and fall of her chest to steady into a slow, deep rhythm.

He didn’t risk getting up until he was sure she wouldn’t rouse, which took a bit longer than he would’ve liked. It occurred to him that the house had fallen eerily silent now that the whirring of the VCR struggling to rewind the movie seemed far too loud in contrast. With a deep breath, he carefully cracked the door open and ventured out of the bedroom.

The beams of multiple flashlights glinted off the hallway windows as Angus tiptoed his way towards the stairs—that at least explained where everyone had gone. He risked peeking for a moment, but he couldn’t make out who the additional figures beside Magnus and Merle’s respective stocky and stout frames were.

Sneaking out was, surprisingly, the easiest part. The neighbor tasked with babysitting them was too preoccupied texting her girlfriend to notice him slink his way through the den and behind the loveseat where she lounged. Rather than take a chance with either door, Angus climbed up on the dryer in the laundry room and slipped out through a window, tumbling a short distance into the garden after leaping from the sill.

He sidled along the house’s perimeter carefully, inching towards the front yard first to assess the situation. There was a police cruiser with its headlights on and an old station wagon that he didn’t recognize parked in the gravel driveway, but the group he’d seen from upstairs was no longer there.

He circled around to the back next, lucky to see the streaks of light by the hiker’s trail just in time before it disappeared completely in the thickness of the treeline. With no light source of his own, he’d need to rely on the group and tail them closely without getting caught—meaning he had no time to consider what a _bad idea_ it was to dart off into the woods at night before doing just that.

 

 

Stealth, as it turned out, was an entirely different ballpark when there were no walls to mute sound or furniture to duck behind.

Walking through the forest at night had nothing in common with its leisurely daytime counterpart. Even with the glow of the flashlights, he could barely see where he was stepping in the underbrush.

He’d already tripped twice, and it was a miracle that no one had looked over their shoulder yet because he was pretty sure he was doing a terrible job at hiding with all of his efforts dedicated to not wiping out. If his glasses were lost at any juncture to the impossibly dark forest floor below, he knew he was a goner.

He did his best to ignore whatever kept skirting the edges of his vision and the occasional rustling at his back (that may've been a byproduct of his own imagination), both motivating him to keep from falling too far behind. Their legs were much longer than his, though, so he’d had to jog at times to keep up.

All in all, it had been a pretty miserable night so far.

_“—should be just through here,”_

His ears perked up after a long stretch of silence.

It was Merle who spoke up after nearly an hour of walking, and sure enough, Angus knew the area from earlier in the day once it was brought to his attention—grey and peculiar in the unfamiliar lighting, maybe, but still recognizable. For the vague directions he and Mavis had given, it was remarkable that they'd made it at all.

He gulped back a dry breath and adjusted his glasses, steadying himself with a hand to a thin low branch—

That snapped under his weight. _Of course._

“A— holy shit, _Angus?”_

A few heads turned his way, but the only additional face he recognized was Killian, who was also the one to call out to him. The other two must’ve been the cops that were parked in the driveway. “Did you _follow_ us?”

_“Angus!”_

While Killian seemed almost impressed, Merle’s face was turning shades of red. His name was growled with an anger typically reserved for the worst of Mookie’s tantrums. Angus shrunk back and mentally tried to scramble together an excuse about asking for forgiveness rather than permission.

“You little… how did you—”

“C-Captain!”

One of the officers he didn’t know interrupted them with a startled shout. “Sir, I— get over here, you need to see this!”

She and Magnus had been at the head of the ensemble and were the first to see it. The focus on him was all but forgotten in an instant as they all pushed their way to the front.

Angus slipped in between Killian and the other officer without trouble, and—

Then he saw it, too.

There are 206 bones in the human body. Angus was sure that if he’d counted, there were only 205 in the clearing that night.

They were all aligned with tidy, even spaces in an intricate spiral that nearly reached where they stood at the edge, each as clean and pearly-white as the vertebrae they’d found. The skull in the center was facing them, piercing the group with its hollow gaze as if the perpetrator had known from which direction they would discover the scene.

All of it arranged in the few hours since Angus had been there that afternoon—set up specifically for _them_ to find, calculated and deliberate and _taunting._

The air around them hung heavy with a mixture of panic and dread as everyone gathered their bearings. Angus felt like he was going to be sick as the implications dawned on him, mind swimming in all the possibilities and _who_ ’s and _what_ 's and _why_ ’s.

Someone else was already retching.

After a moment too long to do any real damage control, he felt Killian wrap her arms around and pull him tightly against herself to shield him from the scene.

Angus tried to struggle against it—he needed more time to absorb it all, to take in the crime scene, _please just a moment longer_ —but she refused to budge, and he found himself too weak from the exhaustion of that day to break the hold, limbs heavy like lead as he resigned to lean into the embrace.

Without sight, he instead took in every word, burning every private conversation within earshot into his mind. There was the buzz of static from a walkie-talkie to his right as one of the officers frantically spoke into it while the other demanded in the most authoritative voice they could manage for everyone to stay back.

The jingle of something small and metallic.

The shuffling of feet, muttering.

A name.

Then, before he realized what was happening, he was being hoisted off of his feet to be carried.

There were only two people he knew of that could throw him over their shoulder like a sack of flour with ease, and of course—with his luck—both were present.

Again—humiliatingly—he failed squirm against Killian's considerable strength, the consequences of skipping dinner catching up to him. Angus took a trembling breath to cry out something in protest, but no one came to his aid or even looked his way. Silent, bitter tears spilled onto his cheeks as he was reluctantly hauled away from the scene, kicking and writhing with all his might.

Over Killian's shoulder the skull stared after him, illuminated hauntingly in the high beams of an unattended flashlight.

He kept an unflinching gaze with it until trees obscured his view of the clearing, but the feeling of being watched didn't leave him until they were back at the campgrounds.

The rest of the night was a frenzied, sleep-addled blur.

 

* * *

 

He was sent home early the next morning without the chance to say goodbye to Mavis or Mookie—when he woke up, they were already gone. Magnus and Killian weren’t around either, and the cars from the previous night were no longer parked out front.

After a suffocatingly silent breakfast, Merle had tried to convince him it was all a dream, before switching gears and outright telling him that it was better for him to forget what he saw—something preachy and unfounded about how his _delicate child psyche_ would be damaged if he dwelled on such a traumatizing event. It was for his own good, he was told.

_Screw that._

In the weeks after he returned home he’d gone over the timeline again and again, cramping space between lines and margins with details he knew were irrelevant, but would help keep his memory sharp. Alibis, hypotheses, _so many questions_ that needed answers before anything concrete could be formed.

Angus’s notes were uncharacteristically rushed, barely-legible chicken scratch in some places, and blotted from where the pen bled through when he’d been lost in thought elsewhere. It didn't matter if it was a mess. This would remind him that it happened, it was _real,_ and no amount of denial or coddling could erase that.

It was his own testimony. A gift to himself, his future self, the Angus McDonald that would return to summer camp the following July and confront the mystery that had too many unknowns to solve from home.

Because the way Maureen Miller’s remains were found never made headlines. Her name wasn’t in the papers anywhere at all—no obituary, no funeral, no ceremony. Her death had been swept under the rug, and everyone seemed content to just move on and forget.

But Angus couldn’t.

He needed answers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi there! thanks for checking this out! this'll probably be ambitiously long for my first fic with where I want to take it, slowburn mystery and all that jazz. 
> 
> ango dango has the spotlight right now, but everyone tagged will show up eventually though. I might update the tags as we go. T rating is for swears and future violence, and possibly heavy topics. I'll hopefully have a regular updates schedule planned in the next few chapters! stay tuned for that!
> 
> a huge thank you to the light of my life pupu for betaing and letting me throw ideas around! lov u xoxo


	2. Chapter 2

It felt like an eternity before summer finally arrived again.

The sky was still dark with the suggestion of dawn lingering on the horizon as he boarded a bus by himself at the depot with his bulky clamshell suitcase in tow. It was the first of several he’d need to take to reach the campgrounds—a tedious commute, but one he was familiar with at this point with three years of summer camp behind him already. As tired as he was, adrenaline kept him from drifting off completely.

He hadn’t spent the whole year dwelling on that night, not at all. Racking his brain over a mystery with too many unknowns had been an effort in futility, as he’d learned after several hundred roadblocks presented themselves in the weeks that followed his departure from camp. There just wasn’t enough he could do from home, especially when the crime wasn’t being reported anywhere to begin with. Too much time had been wasted refreshing the town paper’s archive website in wait for a name that never appeared.

Pouring anymore energy into it during the school year would’ve been damaging to his grades and, honestly, probably his health at some point—and the last thing he wanted to do was prove Merle right about _not being able to cope_ or whatever.

So he’d slipped his investigation journal under his bed, where it collected dust for nearly a year.

Out of sight, out of mind.

(It was still very much on his mind.)

Now two semesters, one Candlenights and a spring break later, Angus was _free_.

A nervous energy hummed within him all throughout the early hours of the morning. His fingers idly brushed over the vane of the feather bookmark that peeked out from between the pages of the closed journal on his lap, tempted to go over his notes again but thinking better of it in public—there was no telling what would happen if another passenger’s eye caught on any of the dubious keywords scrawled in his large, sloppy handwriting. Angus had brought along other less conspicuous books to read, but none could hold his attention for long. The closer they got, the more his stomach twisted with excitement and anxiety.

The sun was nearing its peak in the sky as the passing blur of townships morphed into a dense sea of evergreens that would serve as the extent of the scenery for the remaining hours of the journey after his third transfer. It might’ve been a pretty view if you’d never been out this way before, but none of the other handful of passengers seemed particularly enchanted. Angus definitely wasn’t. The rare gas station or seedy motel in the otherwise uninterrupted treeline was always a welcome visual in comparison to the long stretches of nothingness. At least it meant they were getting closer to his destination.

Merle’s camp was located in a one-stoplight town that virtually no one knew existed because it was so out of the way from… well, _everything else._ A tiny speck on a map that was at least a two hour drive away in every direction from anything remotely resembling an actual city, and an inconvenient distance from the other small settlements in the area. The isolation was exaggerated all the more by the fact that the town was almost completely swallowed by forest on all sides. It was an insular, lonely little place cut off from the rest of the world.

The solitude must’ve appealed to some people though—at least enough to warrant buses making their way up bi-weekly. Angus figured he was one of those people. After all, there were plenty of other summer programs to choose from that were a much more comfortable distance away from Neverwinter—but those options were neither extreme nor adventurous, and he would settle for nothing less than the true camping experience that the the middle of nowhere had to offer.

It was a little past two in the afternoon when he arrived at the doorstep of the Highchurch estate, clad in a crisp uniform that he’d changed into at one of the final pit stops for presentation’s sake. He’d had a growth spurt since he’d worn it the previous year and it was a bit small on him now, but not enough to be noticeably uncomfortable. The bus driver had been kind enough to drop him off just down the road from the campgrounds so he wouldn’t have to walk or hitchhike from the town center.

As expected, the entire property hung in a dead silence.

Angus took a deep breath and went over the lines he’d practiced in his head. He was dreading this interaction, but there was no way around it. Hesitantly, he let the shaky finger that hovered over the doorbell press down. The tone echoed behind the door, and then nothing.

There was a brief flash of panic— _oh gods,_ he hadn’t prepared for the possibility of no one being home right now—but someone stirred inside the house after a minute or two.

When the door cracked open, he was surprised to see the person standing in the darkness on the other side was Miss Lup. She looked exhausted, or maybe hungover, and was glaring daggers at him through her slept-in mascara. Which was… odd. And kind of scary? Angus shrunk back in response. He must’ve woken her up.

He fidgeted with the handle of his suitcase and started to mouth an apology, but was startled out of it when ‘Lup’ clicked their tongue and called into the house an octave lower than anticipated:

“ _Merle,_ one of your boyscouts didn’t get the memo. Come and deal with this?”

_Oh._ Okay. Nope. Not Miss Lup at all.

Sleep deprivation was fogging his mind too much to recall if a twin had ever been mentioned, though he assumed it might’ve been by name only—it was an embarrassing detail for a self-proclaimed boy detective to miss otherwise.

Not-Lup didn’t even give him a second glance before retreating back into the house. Angus could’ve invited himself in, but he decided to be polite and wait.

Merle wasn’t as haggard as Not-Lup when he answered the door, but he absolutely did not look like a man prepared to deal with guests today. Angus’s bright smile at him was mostly genuine, helped along by his ridiculous wardrobe of a garish oversized Hawaiian shirt half-tucked into a pair of swim trunks and tube socks that did not match the fact that it was sweltering and very much July outside. He shielded his eyes from the glare of the sun and blinked rapidly before addressing him.

“Angus?” Merle’s voice was hoarse and incredulous as he squinted down at him over the bridge of his glasses.

“Hello sir! I’m all ready to do some adventuring of the extreme variety this summer,” Angus made a point of pulling on the ends of the dark emerald-green scarf tied loose under his collar to straighten it in place, leaving the iron-on Extreme Teen Adventures patch on the left side of his khaki button-up on full display.

“Didn’t you…” Merle sighed deeply and rubbed at his eyes before trying again. “Didn’t you get the newsletter?”

_Yep, sure did._ It had arrived nearly a month ago and Angus had read it thoroughly, modifying his plans to fit the changes detailed in the letter. It actually made things easier. Strangely, the letter found its way into the trash before Grandpa McDonald could see it.

“Nope,” Angus actually replied, smile wavering for show, “um, was there—am I missing something?”

Merle looked him over and, for a moment, he was afraid his bluff had been seen through—but then the older man shifted his weight uncomfortably and lowered his head with another defeated sigh.

“Well, shit. I guess I shoulda called to be sure. Uh— listen kid— there ain’t… camp ain’t happening this year.” He cleared his throat, fingers idly tapping against the doorframe. “Low attendance numbers and all that. Just wasn’t meant to happen. Hell, I’m not even sure if my own kids are coming up this summer.”

Angus froze. There was no need to feign shock at the revelation he’d already known about—mostly because the latter part was news to him.

Mavis and Mookie were always the first to arrive, so he’d never factored in the possibility that they might not be there already. They were the foundations of his entire plan. He’d anticipated a number of worst-case scenarios, but their absence hadn’t been one of them, because _why would it be?_ Their presence wasn’t reliant on the status of camp, and he knew they’d spent every summer here for the better part of a decade.

He should’ve also known that repetition didn’t equal guarantee. It was a stupid oversight.

The three of them were, ideally, supposed to investigate together without the restrictions of camp keeping them in one place. And now Angus had no idea what he was going to do, because Merle had no reason to let him stick around if his kids weren’t there. He was going to be turned away, and put on another bus and _sent back home and—_

“Oh.” He whispered, voice small and real. “I’m— _oh.”_

“Yeah...” Merle cleared his throat again, looking anywhere but at him.

He needed to think fast to save this.

What happened next was a split-second decision—well, less of a decision and more of a genuine reaction to the situation that was quickly spiralling out of his control, with some added flair. Damp eyes transformed into full-blown waterworks in a matter of seconds, and then he was sobbing loud and unabashedly on Merle’s front porch.

Merle seemed completely taken aback. His hands hovered over Angus’s shaky shoulders awkwardly but never completed the action of actually comforting him. His eyes darted around, looking like he’d do anything to rewind the last five minutes and not answer the door at all. They stayed like this until Angus able to form words again, a new bluff formed in the meantime.

“I— I’m s-sorry, sir… I j-just—” He swallowed back another sob with a shudder, “my g-grandpa’s gonna be in Rockport all summer a-a-and I dunno what I’m gonna d-do…”

He heard Merle mutter curses under his breath. The older man seemed to weigh his options for a moment, before reluctantly pushing the door open a bit wider and motioning for Angus to come in. “C’mon, kid. Might as well figure this mess out inside.”

Angus wiped his cheeks with the back of his hand and nodded, following him inside after Merle took his suitcase. It was hard to hide the small grin trying to creep its way onto his face, but he managed semi-effectively to ward it off until Merle’s back was turned.

He couldn’t believe that _worked_ —but he wasn’t in the clear quite yet. Not having the door slammed in his face was only the first of many hurdles to come before anything was really secured.

It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the contrasting darkness inside the house. The atmosphere was a lot different from what he was accustomed to. It felt more lived-in. Less careful and child-proofed. He noticed an assortment of empty bottles and what looked to be half a dozen dirty mixing bowls strewn throughout the kitchen as they walked past the entranceway. Loose shirts spilled from a pile of laundry at the top of the stairs and hung over the staircase banister in place of a camp flag, but he guessed it wasn’t something Merle kept on display all year round either way. The mess continued throughout the house to the point where Angus had to wonder if he’d just missed a party.

Almost on reflex, Angus tossed his backpack onto the loveseat once they’d entered the den. A disgruntled voice cried out in response and _oh yeah,_ Not-Lup was here too—he completely forgot about them. He circled around to retrieve his bag and squeaked out an apology, but a manicured hand waved him off with a groan.

“Taako, get up already.” Merle mercilessly cranked the den’s dimmer to full brightness, and Taako(?) whined and buried his face further into the couch cushions as the room lit up.

“Don’t wanna.” Taako’s curt response was muffled by a layer of pillow.

After wandering the short distance back to them from where he stood by the lightswitch, Merle firmly yanked on his leg at the end of the couch. Taako yelped with a start, then reluctantly pulled himself up on his elbows. He swept loose strands of tousled platinum blonde hair from his eyes to properly glower up at Merle. “ _Gods—_ okay, okay _fine,_ I’m up.”

They waited as he took his time rolling on his side to lounge more comfortably after kicking away Merle’s loose grip on his ankle, arm theatrically draped over his face to shield it from the glare of the overhead light fixtures. After adjusting his weight and giving his disheveled sundress a once-over to make sure he wasn’t accidentally flashing them when he shifted, he asked, “So, what’s the deal with junior here?”

On cue, Angus primly extended a hand that Taako either didn’t notice or didn’t acknowledge.

“Hello sir, my name is A—”

_“Nnnope.”_ Taako airily dismissed without looking up at him. “Uh-uh. Zip it, boyo, the adults are talking right now.”

Angus inhaled sharply through his nose, more shocked than dejected at being shut down so bluntly.

“This is _Angus,”_ Merle supplied in his place, eyes rolling, “and I’ve had to talk Lup and her guy outta taking him home with them more than a few times, so I’m sure they’ve mentioned him around you. They _adore_ the kid.”

At that, he giggled nervously—extremely flattered, but also very unsure of how much of it was actually an exaggeration. It was probably best not to think about it too much.

Taako’s piercing gaze flickered his way from under his arm now, raking him over from head to toe with an unreadable expression that sent a chill down his spine. Even in his current state, sprawled out and half-awake and missing a fake eyelash (Angus had spotted it lodged in his braid before he rolled over) while the other clung for dear life, Taako managed to maintain a frightfully intimidating air about him. Angus consciously straightened his posture, held his breath, and waited as he was silently judged.

“Mm. Might ring a bell.” Taako finally said after what felt like an eternity, averting his eyes to inspect his nails instead. “But why is he _here?_ Unless this is your way of dropping the ball that my sister and Barold have adopted on the fly and were too afraid to tell me in person—doing a real botch job at it so far if that’s the case, m’man.”

“You know I’d never go along with any plan that involved some poor brat havin’ to call _you_ their uncle,” Merle tried to deadpan with a creeping grin, laughing as he narrowly dodged the throw pillow tossed his way in response.

“But uh— hmm.” He smoothed down his beard after redepositing the cushion back on the couch as his expression shifted into something more pensive. “Angus might be stuck here for the summer. His granddad thought camp was still on and took off, and I can’t exactly send him home if no one’s gonna be there. Any ideas?”

“Just stick him with Maggie.” Taako said easily, but Merle shook his head.

“Puppy camp, remember?”

(Angus wondered if he should know what that was, but he didn’t want to interrupt the flow of the conversation.)

“Kill n’ Carey?”

“Took off on a trip with the RV last week.”

“Does Dav need another busboy?”

“I’m not getting the kid a _job,_ Taako.” Merle sighed. “And you’re _sure_ Lup and Barry aren’t coming ‘til August?”

“Yu-p.” Taako idly traced patterns into the couch fabric, interest waning. “Huh, really starting to sound like you’re S-O-L, Merle.”

“I don’t mind staying here, sir.” Angus piped up then. “I won’t get in the way— I could spend time at the library in town most days and— well, I’d stay out of your hair, I promise!”

He’d nearly slipped up and mentioned the forest—any reminder of last year’s fiasco would’ve been _bad_ for his chances of staying no matter how he worded it. He was lucky Merle was too preoccupied with finding ways to shirk responsibility at the moment to piece together why he was actually here.

“I know you’re self-sufficient, kid.” Merle closed his eyes and rubbed at the crease between his brows, thinking. “I just, uh… y’know, have stuff to do, custody crap to figure out…”

He trailed off as Taako yawned dramatically, signalling that he had completely tuned out of the conversation. His right arm lazily fished for something at the foot of the couch—presumably the remote that Angus could see was just out of his reach in the nook of the coffee table, but he didn’t bother to point it out. Merle’s smile thinned as he watched, and Angus recognized the glint of mischief in his eyes only from seeing the same expression on Mookie so many times.

“Taako? You’re gonna be here all summer?”

“S’the plan.” Taako quickly gave up on his efforts, head lolling back against the arm of the couch. He plucked at the fake eyelash still clinging to his face when he finally noticed it in his periphery.

“And your schedule’s pretty free, I take it.”

“Uh, yep, just gettin’ my R&R on? Merle, what—”  

Taako sat up so quickly when he realized where the conversation was going that Angus had to step back to avoid getting headbutted. “Oh _no.”_ He hissed. “No no _no,_ Merle, _no.”_

“Taako—”

“Not happening.” Taako crossed his arms defiantly. “Lup does the whole babysitter shtick, not me. Taako’s good over here.”

Angus was starting to get the picture, and yeah, he was on Taako’s side for this. It only took ten minutes of being in the same room to know that Taako disliked him, or maybe just kids in general (he tried to convince himself it was most likely the latter, though neither answer was a great comfort). Hostility aside, Angus doubted Taako would humor his investigation with all the effort it would require to actually get up off of the couch.

Merle noticed the way his shoulders slumped and must’ve mistaken the gesture for being disappointed at Taako’s rejection rather than the entire plan itself, because he winked like he had a trick up his sleeve.

“Taako,” He started again, voice gravelly and stern enough to keep from being interrupted. “I know you’re here to take it easy, but you haven’t _done_ anything in the week you’ve been here ‘cept make a mess of my kitchen. Hell, I can’t even get you to leave the house on a good day. It won’t do you no good to stay cooped up inside all summer, and ‘sides that, you need to start pulling your weight around here, kiddo.

“Unless you wanna stay with Dav instead?”

That must’ve been the whammy line, because Merle winked again at Angus—except Angus had absolutely no idea who the hell Dav was, so it was lost on him.

Still, he gave a careful thumbs-up anyway because whatever the threat was, it had Taako looking like a deer in headlights. Taako nervously glanced between them like Angus was suddenly an accomplice in cornering him, too.

“You know I _can’t,”_ Taako hissed, but his tone edged on pleading.

He opened and closed his mouth a few more times, sparing glances at Angus with narrowed eyes. Merle idly drummed his fingers against his arms, refusing to give him an out. Angus was too caught up in the tension between them to speak up or remember that this was about him in the first place.

“I— _fine,”_ Taako finally folded with a scowl. “What are your terms, old man?”

Merle grinned wide and hummed contentedly at his victory, the tension immediately dissipating. “Make sure the kid’s watered and fed, take him where he wants to go, send him to bed by a decent hour. Easy peasy stuff.”

“Dunno about that, Merle, kinda sounds like a lot of _work,”_ Taako drawled. Merle took the hint and sighed.

“Yeah yeah, you’ll get an allowance.” His nose scrunched as he pointed out, “y’know your sister does this stuff for free, right?”

“Not my problem she’s a sucker,” Taako replied breezily.  

With that, Taako stood from the couch with a bounce of his heels. He towered over Angus, the messy braid hanging loose at his shoulder tickling Angus’s cheek as he leaned forward. “Well, bubbeleh, it looks like you and me are stuck together.”

Brow furrowing in uncertainty, Angus had to crane his neck to see Taako’s transparent, syrupy-sweet smile. Taako parroted his earlier action and offered a hand in the small space between them, cold eyes still fixed in a leer that dared him to refuse.

It wouldn’t do Angus much good to argue now—this was probably the best outcome that could’ve been reached, considering. At least it meant he could stay. He could figure out how to deal with Taako later.

Reluctantly, Angus accepted Taako’s hand. The grip was a little too firm on Taako’s end, nails lightly dragging across his palm as he pulled away.

Merle seemed as skeptical of Taako’s newfound amicability as Angus, but visibly shrugged off whatever doubts he was having with ease—probably when he remembered that no matter how disastrous this arrangement was for _them_ , it meant _he_ had a free summer. “I’ll, uh, go put your suitcase up in the kids’ room. Try to get along in the meantime?”

“Of course, Merle, of course.” Taako waved him off, casually resting an arm on top of Angus’s head. “Little Agnes and I are going to be _best buds,_ I can already tell.”

He cast a final despairing glance at Merle as he ascended the stairs, who simply laughed. “Don’t worry, kid, Taako won’t bite.”

Angus doubted that very, very much.

 

* * *

 

The first few days spent in Taako’s care were uneventful, if he put it politely, and mind-numbingly boring if he answered in earnest.

As predicted, there was a lot of lazing around and watching reruns of _Say Yes to the Dress_. Taako wouldn’t even compromise on changing the channel for an hour when Angus wanted to catch the evening news, which seemed pretty ridiculous, considering he napped through half of the shows he threw on anyway.

Whenever Angus would try and coax him out of the house, he’d cite a medical or religious reason as to why it would absolutely kill him—goddesses rest his soul—to leave at that moment, and _have you really never observed Tuff Greg’s Day of Reverence, Agnes? I’ll put in a good word so you won’t get smited or whatever._ Taako was already a difficult person to read, and every excuse was delivered with such finesse and confidence that Angus would’ve believed the lies had they not been so eccentric—but he also didn’t want to further the rift between them by vocalizing his doubts in case Taako was, in fact, a disciple of a wrestling god of chaos that he’d never heard of.

Angus had to go to Merle to confirm that yes, he was being screwed with, and while his peanut allergy was real, his ‘anaphylactic shock from fallen acorns’ story was totally bogus. They were in a forest, he’d be dead already—and besides that, it was entirely the wrong season. Taako got lectured for that one.

His time hadn’t been entirely wasted though. He’d learned what he could around the house, which still gave him a heck of a lot more than he’d had to go on before.

The door to Merle’s office was always open and inviting, even when he wasn’t around. It wasn't like it could be considered _snooping_ or anything when he'd wander in to peruse the overstuffed bookshelves that Merle had explicitly given him permission to borrow from. What he hoped to find, he wasn’t entirely sure of—but honestly, if reading a few stuffy gardening books was all he accomplished that day it would still feel more productive than watching TLC with Taako.  

As expected, a lot of the books were about general forest ecology with some more official-looking statistical records of flora and fauna in the area littered about. Angus gave a wide berth to the Panite scripture on the lower shelves in paranoia that Merle might suddenly appear in the doorway to give the same religious spiel he gave anytime someone showed even a little interest in his god (though he was probably just as likely to do the same if he caught him ogling plant textbooks). He noticed some of the heavier encyclopedias were from the library and _long_ overdue if the layers of dust were any indication and made a mental note not to use the Highchurch’s library card during his stay—it would be less of a hassle to just get his own card for the summer than have to deal with whatever fees and grief Merle’s forgetfulness had caused some poor librarian.

He hadn’t realized Merle’s interest in the forest was anything more than a hobby until he found a folded letter tucked between the pages of a book near the end of the shelf that addressed him as a caretaker. The letter was sent by town hall, kindly reminding him that the regional forestry bureau had requested hazard signs be put up along the trails ‘months ago’. Five years had passed since the date the letter was signed, and Angus knew for a fact that Merle had never honored the request (and that one of the _“BEWARE OF BEARS”_ signs was definitely hanging up in the guest room Magnus frequented). The way it was written seemed tongue-in-cheek enough that doubted Merle got in trouble over it, though.

He laughed when he realized the letter had been sticking out of a comically thin notebook titled in crude handwriting _“Predator Sightings: ‘70s-present”_ , as if to prove a point. It seemed to be a log of observations and accidents kept by every caretaker of the forest in recent decades, judging by the way the handwriting changed drastically as the years went on. Most of the major sightings were denounced as pranks. Nothing about what little was written jumped out at him as particularly interesting, but it was a small town and the surnames that were repeated throughout might come in handy to know later on in his investigation, so he added the notebook to his growing stash of borrowed tomes.

Further exploration produced much of the same as the first shelves he inspected. A few home improvement magazines featuring beachfront properties painted a sad picture of Merle’s personal life, but otherwise looked positively scandalous next to all of the forest-focused textbooks.

There were a few ledgers for the camp on the bookshelf nearer his desk that he didn’t bother peeking at. It would’ve been hard to explain away if he was caught, and if Merle’s silence had been bought it wouldn’t be written in his financials anyway (not that he wanted to even consider that possibility—Merle had his quirks, but his moral compass wasn’t _that_ skewed). Searching Merle’s desk was also too risky while he and Taako were around, so he called it a day there and returned to his room with his collection after scavenging a few more illustrated foliage glossaries.

It was at breakfast the following morning that an off-handed comment made by Merle revealed that Taako had grown up in the town—an incredibly helpful tidbit, considering every other local he knew had the mutual experience of discovering a cryptic crime scene together with him and would be very suspicious if he began poking around. Taako didn’t seem aware of last summer’s events at all.

Angus peppered him with questions about the town whenever Merle was out of earshot.  To Taako, the constant pestering probably seemed like an attempt to get under his skin, though he insisted he was just curious. Many of his answers were non-committal nods or head shakes without much elaboration. Yeah, his neighbors seemed pretty chill. No, he’d never seen a bear. Of course he didn’t know what times the library was open, did he _look_ like a nerd? _The only axe murderer in this town is gonna be me in about five seconds if you don’t let me finish this episode in peace,_ et cetera.

As minimal as it all was, he made an effort to add it to his notes. He also started a section for Taako out of boredom. It was good practice. Taako was _a lot_ to unravel, so he stuck with small observances for now.

On some nights, he would wake up to hear him making a ruckus in the kitchen downstairs, but Angus noted he could never smell anything being cooked to completion. In fact, the dirty utensils left behind were the only evidence anything had been attempted at all in the morning. Taako wasn’t exactly gung-ho about wasting energy on… anything, really, so the idea that he was sacrificing precious hours of sleep trying to learn a new skill was out of the question.

So—it had to be a skill he already knew. Maybe he was even _good_ at cooking at some point, but Angus had no way of knowing whether that was still (or ever) true. There were no physical injuries that Angus could observe that would impede the transition of putting a muffin tin in an oven, but not the prep work. A complex with food, then? He’d watched him carefully at meals and eating didn’t seem to be the issue, so he was probably on the right track in assuming it was the process of cooking itself. Something he’s trying to overcome if he spends so many nights in the kitchen.

His mind wandered as he tried to wrap it around the idea of someone as glitzy as Taako being a chef. He wrote at the end of his notes:

_Research - hair and makeup regulations for culinary occupations?_

He paused. Then, below that,

_Recurring cases of cooking while sleepwalking?_

That… seemed much more plausible, in all honesty.

Finished for the day, Angus thumbed to the first page to ink Taako’s name into the index far below the main leads of his investigation. It would be a fun side project to keep up with, but he dreaded the thought of it being the only section he got to update this summer.

With a sigh, he closed the journal beside him and hopped down from the window alcove where he’d perched all afternoon when the doorbell rang downstairs. Delivery pizza from a pub in town, because apparently Merle was actually serious about having legal appointments in Bottlenose Cove to deal with and wasn’t coming home tonight. It took them both by surprise to be left alone properly for the first time, but things had been going smoothly for the most part. Taako had been a little nicer today, even if only because he knew Merle wouldn’t be here to mediate if he took a joke too far.

As they settled into the den with their meals, Angus asked if they could put on a nature documentary Merle had mentioned was airing today.

“Woah— Don’t look now, but I think it’s already on over there!”

At this point, he shouldn’t have been surprised when he followed the direction Taako was pointing in only to see it was at the window overlooking the woods out back. That was a no, then.

Instead, they ate in silence with a sitcom neither were particularly paying attention to playing in the background, eyes drawn momentarily to the screen whenever a laughtrack played. Taako intermittently muttered about fresh basil and wood ovens and Angus wanted to argue that gourmet standards couldn’t be expected of a pub, but figured it wasn’t worth getting into. The pizza was pretty good, all things considered.

Angus took the initiative in collecting their dishes after they’d finished to wash at the kitchen sink. It was an excuse to also soak the soiled mixing bowls, really, because Taako was never going to do it and he was afraid they’d face a plague of insects by the time Merle got back with all the syrups and batter left out in the open. Doing chores didn’t bother Angus much—his grandpa forgot to do things sometimes, and so he’d learned to be mindful of these sorts of things in his place. It wasn’t the same with Taako, but sparing them a call to the exterminator would benefit them both at the end of the day.

He hummed to himself as he fell into a rhythm. Nearly an hour must’ve passed by the time the kitchen was in a decent state again. The house was quiet now, he realized, though he hadn’t noticed the exact moment that the droning of the TV had stopped trickling in through the doorway. Peeking through it, he didn’t see Taako on the couch anymore—an even rarer sight than the TV actually being off. Maybe he’d gone to sleep in his own guest room for once to avoid him.

Searching for Taako didn’t really pique his interest, so he didn’t bother. Angus put the leftover pizza in the fridge and began procedurally shutting off all the lights as he started to make his way upstairs.

It was probably best to read a book and go to bed early tonight and ponder new ways to bother Taako in the morning while he was at it—maybe convince him to go to the pub in person to sass them about their apparently unsatisfying pizzas? Complaining seemed to be one of Taako’s favorite passtimes, if the extensive list of Yelp reviews he’d shown off the other day was any indication. They could make a field day of it—maybe get some food on the house if Taako made a good case, if he didn't make the hostess cry first, and—

Angus froze at the top of the stairs just as he'd flipped the last of the switches.

“Hey, bubbeleh.”

Taako was languidly curled up in the window nook at the end of the hallway, backlit by the glow of the moonlight that cast long, dark shadows over the rest of the hall. Angus could see that his eyes were still trained on what he held above his head with an extended arm, seemingly unbothered that the wall sconce behind him had been turned off. He didn’t a better light source to put two and two together.

Taako had his investigation journal.

An anguished cry bubbled from Angus’s throat as he dashed down the hallway without a second thought. Taako was one step ahead of him, gracefully planting both feet back on the floor and standing in one swift movement before he even reached the window. The pale light they were bathed in added to the flurry of motion of their struggle as it danced across their silhouettes and caught on the lens of his glasses in a way that was almost disorienting. Taako clicked his tongue and waved a taunting finger as Angus jumped and grabbed at air in vain.

“Sir, please give that back!” He demanded as much force as he could muster.

“Oh, don’t you know not to leave your diary out in the open, sweet Agnes? But I’ve gotta say—this is some pretty morbid shit you’ve got written in here,” Taako casually continued skimming pages with his his head held high and a cruel smirk, features strange and elongated in the way the shadows fell at a slanted angle. “Murder? Conspiracy? Merle and Maggie have _really_ been holding out on me.”

This was _bad._ If Taako told Merle about this, he was done for.

“You can’t— _please—”_

Taako sidestepped out of the way with ease as Angus tried to climb on top of the alcove for the extra height in desperation, twisting his wrist accordingly as he moved to always catch the glow from the window on the pages and continue reading unimpeded. The mix of graphite and ink reflected in the dim light, and Angus could tell from a few highlighted words exactly which page Taako was on. His breath hitched.

Taako continued on conversationally, “To think, I had to learn these juicy deets from some kid’s— _Oh?_ What’s this?”

His bravado dropped momentarily as he squinted up and parsed what was written—only to be replaced with a Cheshire grin flashed Angus’s way, the brilliant moonlight glinting off of the whites of his eyes and teeth only enhancing the already-terrifying expression in the darkness of the hall. “Have you been _writing about me?”_

Angus shifted his weight uncomfortably as a twinge of guilt washed over him. “No, this is _great,_ ” Taako’s shrill laughter verged on hysterical as he threw his head back, not bothering to wait for an answer. “Love this. You got a TV at home, poindexter?”

The question caught him off-guard. “I— no?”

“Of _course_ you don’t,” Taako wiped a nonexistent tear from his eye with an airy sigh, mirth still tugging at the corners of his lips, “ _gods—_ that’s just perfect.” Angus didn’t know what was so funny, but this was much more unnerving than if he’d been yelled at as anticipated.

He expected Taako to rip the pages out or make some venomous threat next, but neither action ever came to fruition.

Instead—shockingly—Taako simply closed the journal and handed it back. He very nearly let it slip through his grip and fall to the floor, so sure that Taako was going to pull it away again at the last moment.

“Look, I’m gonna level with you,” Taako explained as Angus stared after him in a daze, composure somewhat regained. “Casa de Highchurch? Boring as hell. You know it, I know it—there’s a whole bunch of _nothing_ to do in this podunk town. But this?”—Taako drummed his index finger on the journal, long nail clacking against the hardcover binding— _”This_ is the good shit. Never figured you’d be the type who knows how to have a good time, boychik, but I guess we’re both full of surprises today. Taking names and gettin’ all j’accuse on my old neighbors? Hell yeah—why not? Beats sitting around here.

“What I’m trying to say is,” his toothy, lopsided grin wasn’t all that different from the one he pulled before, but felt much less hostile now—maybe even _genuine._ “Taako’s _one-hundred percent_ in.”

Huh.

That was— Angus couldn’t quite process all of that, but he thought he got the gist of it. Taako continued to defy his expectations, and he was surprised he was starting to discover that it was a _good_ thing.

He blinked slowly up at Taako and swallowed. “So…” Angus started, head tilting in confusion, “you won’t tell Merle about this?”

“What?” Taako’s face scrunched in offense. “No way. You think I’m some kinda nark? That killjoy would shut us down in a heartbeat.”

Angus nodded carefully. “And… you’re not mad that I wrote about you.”

“I’m a pretty fascinating dude, can’t blame you for being entranced. Who _doesn’t_ want to unravel this mystery?”

Taako made a point of throwing his long hair over his shoulder and struck a pose with his chin held high. Angus rolled his eyes at the display, but his smile betrayed his relief.

If anything, Taako was even _more_ indecipherable now than when they’d first met—but, unless he had horribly misread the situation, it seemed like they had a truce. Trust and understanding were big words he didn’t think were quite applicable yet, but at the very least Taako had seemed honest about not snitching on him, and that was good enough for Angus.

“Thanks, Taako.” He murmured under his breath with a smile.

He wondered if Taako had even heard him, but he saw his expression soften for a brief blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment that he’d surely deny or blame on the poor lighting if Angus called it out.

Taako turned on his heels then with a loud yawn, signalling his exit. “Got some stuff we gotta figure out—maybe negotiate the terms of our teamwork and all that jazz—but that can wait ‘til morning. I’m pooped.”

“Okay!” Angus chimed after him. “Goodnight, sir!”

He lazily waved over his shoulder without looking back as he started down the stairs.

“G’night, Ankles.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another longish one... I was going to split this up into two chapters originally, but that would've drawn things out a bit too much I think. slooowly inching our way towards the actual mystery, I promise! 
> 
> I think every other sunday is a good schedule for now. maybe if I get ahead enough I'll be able to post once a week, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to keep these chapters short enough for that kind of pace. we'll see!
> 
> thank you so much to everyone who left kudos and commented on the first chapter!! it was really exciting to see people reading this? like, that's so cool! I hope you enjoyed this chapter as well! xoxo


	3. Chapter 3

It was a little past nine when they reconvened for their first official meeting as a team.

Angus’s patience had only carried him so far into the morning before he decided that their time management was already poor enough _without_ Taako sleeping in, and bit the bullet. He hoped that throwing together a quick breakfast from what could be scrounged from Merle’s decidedly barren cupboards would help counter whatever grumpy opposition awaited him in the den.

“Hachi machi, is that breakfast in bed?” Taako, still cocooned from head to toe in a layered nest of duvets (all stolen from the downstairs guest rooms, Angus recognized from their distinct floral patterns) seemed to stir at the smell of the coffee rather than the motion of Angus walking in and setting the tray down in front of him. On the tray were two mugs with the fixings for Taako’s coffee on the side, a fraying wicker basket of leftover fruit swiped from the island counter, and a bowl of granola cereal with almond milk for himself. “You spoil me, D’Angelo.”

“It wasn’t much trouble to throw together, sir.” Angus assured, opting to sit in Merle’s dumpy recliner rather than grapple Taako for a more comfortable spot on the loveseat. The fact that Taako was alert enough to think of new and creative ways to bastardize his name without using the energy to snap something abrasive instead meant that it was looking to be a neutral day in the Taako forecast—the best outcome he could hope for, considering he wasn’t sure if Taako _had_ good days, and he’d seen plenty of bad ones already.

He pulled the borrowed hoodie from Mavis’s closet tighter around himself as Taako groaned and stretched, emerging from his blanket fortress to eye the tray with interest. It hadn’t taken them long to realize that Merle, in a move that was the antithesis of being a responsible homeowner, had left the central air blasting arctic temperatures in some self-sabotage to his electricity bill when he’d left for the weekend, failing to mention to either of them where the thermostat was hidden with no forethought to the consequences (Angus had his suspicions—for instance, the home office that he’d _locked up_ before leaving, and the only locked room in the house). The cottage had gone from uncomfortably chilly to winter hellscape overnight, but Angus hoped to play it in his favor later as another incentive to finally get out of the house today.

He nursed his own mug of orange juice as he watched Taako ruin his coffee with a free-pour of what must’ve equated to at least five or six spoonfuls of sugar and a generous splash of creamer, finding himself somewhere between amazed and appalled when he realized it _wasn’t_ for a goof and that Taako legitimately intended to chug every last drop of the syrupy disaster of his own creation. That was one point for the _Taako’s tastebuds are broken_ theory he’d have to jot down later.

“So,” Taako broke the silence around a mouthful of apple a couple of minutes into their breakfast. “What’s the game plan, boychik?”

“Oh— uh, well,” He fumbled for the journal perched on the arm of the recliner and pushed his now mostly-drained cereal bowl to the side to make room in the center of the table, taking a moment to mull over the best way to ease into the dense amount of topics that needed to be addressed. “Before that, I guess I should ask how much you actually read?”

As it turned out, their impromptu game of hide and seek-turned-keepaway hadn’t allowed for Taako to do much but skim the pages. Apparently reading by moonlight wasn’t so easy after all, despite the bluff to convince him otherwise the night before.

“Gist of it though,” he interrupted himself with a pronounced _crunch,_ “—issat you found a dead chick in the woods, right?”

Angus nodded through a wince at his choice of words, prompting him to continue his ineloquent summary. “And, uh, the crime scene was all spooky and _weird_ and shit. And Merle n’ Mags n’ Kil are all stone-cold villains for manhandling you, m’guess,” he drawled, a yawn bubbling out at the tail end of it.

“I— I didn’t say anything _bad_ about them.” Angus sputtered at the accusation, feeling heat rise to his cheeks. “My account was completely unbiased!” At least, he _thought_ it was.

“Uh huh. Whatever you say, homie,” he snickered around his cup of sickeningly sweet coffee. “Taako _knows_ shade when he reads it. Like, to be fair, you’re what— six? Of course they’re gonna be dodgy about it.”

“Eleven,” He corrected in a huff.

“Oh right, sorry, _eleven_ is the magic age where poking around dead bodies is all totally _cool and okay and allowed,_ I forgot,” Taako rolled his eyes, voice dripping with sarcasm. “Nope, doesn’t sound like a PR disaster for Merle’s crummy youth camp _at all_.”

In lieu of a pointless rebuttal, Angus sighed and opened the journal to the index page.

“Anyway,” He made a point of clearing his throat as he turned the book towards Taako, doing his best to remain chipper. “After careful consideration, I figured these would be good places for us to start investigating first. If you, um— if you have any questions, please let me know!”

His finger slowly traced down the page over the first letters of each lead, suddenly self-conscious about the messiness of his notes. This journal was only ever meant for his eyes when he’d written it in the first place, so he hadn’t fussed much about organization or whether any of it would be legible for a partner he couldn’t be sure would ever exist. If Taako was making fun of him right now, at least he was kind enough to keep it it in his head.

He joined him in scanning down the page from the wrong side of the table, knowing the order by heart.

_MAUREEN MILLER  / POLICE REPORT  / SIMILAR INCIDENTS_ —an arrow connecting it to the line below— _MERLE AND MAGNUS’S ACCOUNTS (might know?)  / THE CRIME SCENE—_ a line drawn to a lone word to the side _—BONES??? (pg. 22)_ —several more question marks surrounded the word, the page number leading to a crude diagram he’d drawn of the way the bones were arranged— _TOWN HISTORY  / MYSTERY VISITOR_

Then, fourteen lines below that, simply: _TAAKO_

Taako lagged a few lines behind as he read, fighting a grin when he reached his own name at the bottom. “I see, I see,” He nodded along in mock contemplation.

Angus folded his hands in his lap. “So, I was thinking—”

“Agnes.”

He startled at the closest approximation to his actual name uttered in the past 24 hours, the playful lilt that typically accompanied Taako’s speech unsettlingly absent. His mouth pressed into a thin line as they locked eyes across the table.

“Y-Yes?” Angus squared his shoulders and gulped, feeling gooseflesh prickle down his arms in anticipation. Did Taako recognize something? Had they made a breakthrough _already?_

His voice hushed to a stage whisper. “Dunno how you missed this one, but…”

Taako steepled his fingers and leaned in conspiratively. Without realizing it, Angus leaned forward too, unconsciously drawn into his orbit. There was a dramatic pause where he forgot to breathe. Then, gravely, Taako delivered the news,

“... when people die, they leave behind _bones._ ”

Angus squinted at him, and then down at the journal—

and then rubbed his face and exhaled a _deep_ sigh.

“No, that’s not—”

“ _Shh,_ ” Taako cooed in mock comfort. “Don’t freak out, but there’s a skeleton inside you, too,” his mouth quirked as he bit back a laugh, “and it’s gonna _get out_ one day!”

Taako finally broke, wiggling his fingers and _oooh_ -ing through giggles as Angus rolled his eyes. “Good goof, sir,” he conceded humorlessly.

“Not a goof, it’s _reality_. But whatever,” Taako shook his head like it couldn’t be helped and retook a lounging position, “just tryin’ to help you erase some of those question marks in that journal _and_ in your life, but fine, stay blind to the truth.” Taako made a checkmark motion in the air over the  _BONES_  lead and murmured some lament about not having a gel pen on him.

He rubbed his temples and allowed himself to briefly ponder whether this process would’ve been easier or worse if his original plan hadn’t fallen through and Mookie was the one sitting on the loveseat instead. The fact that Taako was looking to tie with a hyperactive nine-year-old in the attention span department didn’t inspire much confidence. Thankfully, though, Taako seemed to relent some after working through some obvious boner jokes that Angus was happy to tune out.

Without missing another beat, he went over the basic details of each lead that needed further elaboration—Maureen Miller was the victim, the bones’ arrangement might play a significant role _if_ it actually meant anything, hence the question marks (with more to be added once they knew for sure, no doubt), and that there’d been a station wagon in the driveway that night that hadn’t belonged to the neighbors or Magnus—the “mystery visitor”.

The final lead felt like as much of a frivolous addition as Taako’s own entry was, since there was virtually no way of following up on it. The chances of even recognizing the vehicle if he saw it again were slim without a license plate to reference, and the owner themselves impossible, considering he’d never encountered the elusive visitor in all the turmoil. It had still been parked when Killian had taken him back, but was gone by morning.

He couldn’t ask anyone who was there about it, of course. It bothered him that there was an unaccounted for person in the mix, but the chances of them being the culprit were low. If they were unwelcome or uninvited, then someone—Carey, most likely, seeing as she’d been in the house the whole night—would’ve said something. He was sure the search party wouldn’t have just left a potential suspect’s vehicle unguarded, either. Still, even if it amounted to nothing, their existence felt like a red herring.

“How’d you catch the name, anyway?” His somewhat engaged audience of one spoke up after the preamble was finished, looking up from his efforts to pluck loose threads from the hem of his sweater. It startled him out of his thoughts.

“Y’know, if she was already all...” he continued, gesturing vaguely, “... skelly?”

Taako being immersed enough to ask a relevant question felt like a small victory, but he couldn’t help but frown a bit at the answer he could provide. “I... think there was a medical bracelet left at the scene. Or maybe a piece of jewellery— or locket with her name? I’m not really sure.”

It was only an assumption that bridged the metallic jangle he’d heard with the name that was spoken moments later, having only auditory clues to go by, but he wasn’t sure how they would’ve identified the remains so quickly otherwise. The mounting number of unknowns for things he was _present for_ was greatly frustrating.

“Awfully convenient,” Taako matched his frown, tapping his chin in thought.

“Leaving behind evidence definitely wasn’t an accident,” he agreed. “Whoever did this wanted us to know who she was. She might’ve been a missing person for a long time, since her remains were skeletonized”—a small snort from Taako—”so I want to find out if she has any family in town that might’ve still been searching for her last summer. They might be able to give us a better picture of who she was, and what she might’ve been up to before she disappeared.”

“I _guess_ I could ask around about the Millers on the low.” Taako let out a put-upon sigh, as if the mere mention of legwork tired him despite being the one to volunteer. “Uh, obviously not around you-know-who, chill.” Taako added as Angus cast a skeptical look. “I’ve got a ton of other friends in town to interrogate that aren’t M-n’-M, don’t even sweat. ‘What’s up, how about this weather, didja hear how hard that Miller chick got murdered? Pretty wild, huh?’— _Super_ cas’ way of chattin’ up dudes I haven’t seen since high school. No one’ll suspect a thing.”

Angus knew he was only joking around, but his shoulders slumped a bit nonetheless. “No one else thinks that she was murdered, sir.” He corrected.

_“What?"_ Taako stopped mid-reach for the remnants of the fruit basket to gawk. “Like, the freaky skeleton shit I get, but how the hell’d they manage to sweep _that_ one under the rug?”

“I don’t know what the official report was,” Angus admitted, worrying at his bottom lip as a memory surfaced to the forefront of his mind. “But I heard one of the cops talking later that night, and I think they…”

He took a breath as he caught himself faltering. There was no room to doubt himself now. This was _exactly_ why he’d written his account down in the journal while it was still fresh in the first place. He had to trust himself.

With more confidence, he corrected, “no, I _know_ they wrote it off as a suicide.”

He’d awoken on the loveseat god-knows how many hours into the night after Killian had carried him back to the sound of a conversation that was quickly evolving into an argument in the kitchen. Only fragments drifted to him when the volume spiked in the heat of whatever was being discussed, never _quite_ enough to discern the subject or the speakers.

But he could recall one statement in full clarity from the gut-wrenching _wrongness_ of it, and the palpable tension that followed, frigid and all-consuming, like a curse that settled over the still house the moment it was spoken. The voice had belonged to the older cop that had been at the scene, a low rumble that silenced the rest of the squabbling immediately.

_She killed herself._

The nature of the conversation had been disturbingly clear from those three words alone. The finality of the statement suggested that whoever else was in the kitchen—he hadn’t dared lifted his head to check, but he had his guesses—weren’t being _asked_ to consider it as a foregone conclusion, they were being _told_. There was no room for debate. How absurd it was to those who’d been present and seen evidence to the contrary was irrelevant—it was a fabrication meant for the public, the ones who hadn’t been there and would never know the state that Maureen Miller was found in.

An easy explanation for an open-and-shut case with so few witnesses.  

The cover-up cast a lot suspicion on the officers involved in the case, to say the least. It wasn’t surprising that Angus hadn’t been included, because who would believe such an outlandish story from a child anyway? Any claims could be written off as nightmares or a wild imagination. He wasn’t a liability, wasn’t viewed as a threat—an oversight that he intended to disprove and exploit, in time.

But knowing he was the only one spared from whatever threats or NDA’s had most certainly been dished out brought little comfort. Merle and Magnus and Killian were all good people. He knew they wouldn’t sign off on corruption without a fight or a _very_ compelling reason. The missing pieces of that conversation formed a nagging question that he’d struggled to wrap his head around for an entire year: _What had convinced the others to go along with the lie?_

Angus conveyed as much out loud, brow knit tight all the while. Taako whistled low after taking a moment to soak it all in.

“Can’t say I’m surprised, pigs n’ all,” but an anxious titter betrayed the aloofness he was trying to feign. Taako took his time with the last dregs of his now-cold coffee as an excuse to collect the mess of thoughts that Angus could see worrying his expression. The break in composure made him think he’d been naive in assuming Taako understood the gravity of the situation before he’d agreed to help, and found himself mildly disappointed at the thought of him backing out now. Thankfully, no such declaration was made when he finally cleared his throat and set the mug down.

“He, uh— you know this thug’s name?” Taako’s facade had repaired itself enough to look disinterested, but the way his leg bounced was an obvious tell. “The big bad cop, I mean. Wouldn’t happen to be Bane, would it?”

“I— yes, I think so?”

“ _Great_. Cool, cool.” He clicked his tongue and cursed under his breath. “Was uh, kinda hoping the crooked bastard bounced or died after I left, but it’s _real good_ to hear he’s graduated from harassing kids to covering for _murderers_. Promotion we all shoulda seen coming, the way he carries on n’ all…” the rest trailed off in a spiteful murmur that he didn’t quite catch.

“You know him, sir?” He offered, though that much was clear already.

“Oh, _do I ever,_ ” Taako snarled. He fished a tangerine out of the basket and slumped back, intermittently squeezing it like a stress ball. Belatedly, Angus realized he’d opened the door to another tangent. He could see the gears turning in Taako’s mind as he worked through where to start with what he could only assume to be a mountain of tailored complaints and insults towards the cop, but he floundered before he could get too riled up.

“Uh, no— wait. First, actually, disclaimer: I already know you’re a square, but I’m not condoning any of this next stuff, got it? The following is non-admissible in court, Taako the role model is washing his hands of whatever delinquency you get up to on your own time, yada yada.”

He waited for Angus to humor him by crossing his heart before continuing. “Good. So, anyway— I might have some _minor_ felonies under my belt from when I was a kid,”

Scraps of rind fell in a messy heap on his lap as he tore away at the tangerine to keep his hands busy while he griped, dropping the existence of his criminal record as innocuously as possible. "But you’d think I tried to raze the whole _town_ with the way Bane breathed down my neck. Couldn’t go anywhere without him tailing me and makin’ up bullshit to get me in trouble. Dude gets off on bullying kids, I swear. Lifting was more or less my trademark for a bit there, but that asshole could never tell Lup n’ me apart, so I’ve got that sweet _arsonist stigma_ going for me, too. So like, yeah,”—he paused to lap up the juice and pulp that was beginning to dribble down his wrist—”not Taako’s biggest fan _for sure_. Feeling’s mutual, of course.”

Angus tried hard to school his reaction into something vaguely shocked at the revelation out of politeness, but he wasn’t really feeling it—imagining the twins as hellions in their teen years was almost _too_ easy. Now there was context to the wary looks passed between the counsellors whenever Lup would enthusiastically volunteer to build the campfire. He was curious to hear the colorful tales that were hinted at, but it probably wouldn’t be too difficult to prod Taako into reminiscing later.

“You don’t think Captain Bane can be trusted,” he surmised from his rant instead.

“Damn right. Don’t go near the dude if you know what’s good for you, Angles, ‘else you’ll be a scapegoat for his shitty quota too.” Taako huffed, waving an orange slice to punctuate his warning.

At least they were on the same page. If Taako was telling the truth about his poor reputation, though, then there was a chance that associating with him would make investigating even trickier than he’d initially thought. Still, the officers from that night would inevitably peg him as a troublemaker if they caught wind that he was poking around anyway, so getting on their radar was less of an _if_ and more of a _when_. They just needed to be careful in the meantime.

They decided to leave the police report alone for now as the rest of the leads were divvied up between them. Taako insisted on looking into similar incidents and Merle and Magnus’s accounts himself because, quote, _“it’d be real gauche to let the kid I’m babysitting start chattin’ up folks about dead bodies and junk”_. He reiterated how stealthy he would be about it, which Angus still very much doubted. Still, Taako had a point about it being more natural for him to ask around as a local, so he reluctantly entrusted the more delicate leads to him.

Meanwhile, he’d try to learn what he could about the town’s history (it was archaic, but crossing off the possibility of blood feuds when he had nothing else to go on was a safe bet), the bones, and— _hopefully_ —Maureen Miller. The library was probably his best chance on all of those fronts. Considering the size of the town, he wasn’t expecting anything elaborate like the entire floor dedicated to special collections rooms in Neverwinter’s grand library, but there must’ve been some form of genealogy archives that he could get access to to find relatives. It was a tedious way of going about it, but anything else would rouse too much suspicion on his end.

Taako agreed to take him into town that afternoon with only a bit of complaining. He disappeared into his guest room shortly after without explanation, leaving Angus to twiddle his thumbs for a few hours after updating his Taako entry with the morning’s observations and jotting down who was taking charge of which leads.

Just before it was time to leave, he had the idea to quickly run upstairs and change into his Extreme Teen Adventures uniform—that way, he could say he was working on some obtuse project if anyone asked, seeing how unlikely it was that anyone paid enough attention to know that camp wasn’t running unless they had children who attended. Merle had been accurate in saying that attendance numbers were low in recent years, though, so he considered the risks minimal enough. In his experience, people were always more willing to help out a scout than a random nosy child.

He heard a snicker as he rounded the bannister at the top of the stairs. “Shoulda coordinated our undercover looks, bubbeleh— we’re gonna stick out like sore thumbs.”

It became immediately apparent why Taako had been holed up in his room. The first thing that caught Angus’s attention was his full face of golden-hued, immaculate makeup as it shimmered in the light of an overhead fixture, complimenting the more pronounced gleam of his smattering of expensive-looking jewelry. He’d changed out of the oversized sweater he’d worn to bed in favor of a rosy off-shoulder top and pale, high-waisted trousers—a look that would’ve succeeded at being subdued, were it not for the inclusion of a pair of huge, glittery sunglasses with hot pink rims. It was an understated look compared to the bold prints and dresses he wore around the house, but it was still _very_ Taako.

“You look nice, sir.” He caught Taako preening from the corner of his eye as he brushed past to slip his shoes on at the door, hearing a quiet _‘natch’_ in response that was followed by the clacking of Taako’s heeled boots on the hardwood behind him. He wondered if Taako remembered that they had to _walk_ to town and back, but dreaded the extra hour it would take for him to find replacement shoes that wouldn’t clash with everything else if he mentioned it. He could settle for sore feet being the main topic of tonight’s dinner smalltalk instead.

Taako detoured to the entranceway closet, scowling in disapproval when the scant selection didn’t meet his standards. Angus quirked a brow at the violet umbrella hooked in the crook of his elbow when he reemerged. “I don’t think it’s going to rain,” he pointed out, looking to the bright, cloudless sky through the open front door and back at him.

“Uh, yeah, that’s the _point._ ” Taako slid his sunglasses down his face and moved out onto the porch and down the steps in long strides, not slowing as Angus clued in to hastily shut the door behind him and jog after him. He opened the umbrella and continued once he met his pace. “The sun is gonna absolutely _wreck_ your skin by the time you’re my age if you’re careless. Wait a sec—” He sniffed the air and stared accusingly down at him over the bridge of his glasses. “I’m smellin’ a distinct lack of sunscreen stink coming from you, boyo.”

Angus offered a guilty smile. “I, um— might’ve forgotten to put any on?”

Taako groaned, flashing a quick glance over his shoulder and reluctantly seeming to decide that they were already too far out to justify running back in (despite still being in the driveway). “Fine, get under here.” He tilted the umbrella slightly to accommodate him. “Can’t have you frying under my watch.” Angus obliged with a grateful nod, careful not to knock into Taako as they adjusted to sharing the cramped space side by side.

At the end of the driveway was a long, narrow stretch of road bordered by a dense thicket of forest in either direction. It was in a relatively straight line, but with just enough slight bumps and turns to make neither the highway nor the town center in the opposite direction visible through the obscuration of the trees closest to the road. It was quiet, but serene. No cars passed by, but that wasn’t unusual—unless you were leaving town or had business at the campgrounds, there wasn’t much reason to drive to the outskirts, and anything closer was within walking distance. Angus had walked from the town center where the bus usually dropped him off enough times to be familiar with the route, but everything else was relatively unexplored. Once they got to town, he would have to rely on Taako to direct him on where to go.

Five minutes down the road was the trailer park—technically part of the campgrounds, or it was at some point, but the path in the space between the two had become too overgrown and neglected to traverse in the years since the properties had become separate. He peeked through the chainlink fence as they walked by, but couldn’t spot Killian and Carey’s RV in its usual space near the front of the lot. It wasn’t unusual for them to be on the road around this time, but he hoped they’d be back before he left. He always looked forward to their tacky postcards and trinkets from all across Faerun in the summers where they’d return just in time to act as pseudo-counsellors a week or two before camp ended.

Well. That, and he was itching to get their testimonies. But souvenirs were nice, too.

With that thought, his mind wandered back to camp in the stretch on silence between them. Thinking about the camp counsellors was making him a bit sentimental. He wouldn’t trade his current opportunity to solve a real life murder for the world, of course, but there was a sadness that came from being unable to see his friends and not having the distinct smell of woodsmoke following him to bed each night. He’d be a sophomore in September, and it was only a matter of time before he got too busy with school to dedicate his summers to camp anymore, so a whole year without it felt like… a waste. Of his childhood, maybe? He wasn’t used to thinking of it that way, but he supposed it was true. He’d be twelve by the end of the year, and even though it was called Extreme Teen Adventures, the camp was decidedly for a younger audience.

It was all out of his hands, though, so fretting wouldn’t do much good. For all he knew, the camp might stay closed permanently, especially if things didn’t work out for Merle in court. Even if it did reopen, it was possible that things would never be the same again after what happened, or after what he was doing right now. _That_ was a scary thought.

Taako caught his woeful sigh and raised a brow. “I just…” Angus idly fiddled with his uniform’s scarf, twisting and untwisting the ends as he sighed again. “I guess I miss camp, is all. It’s weird to see the campgrounds so empty.”

Taako hummed in response, but said nothing. So, he prompted, “Did you go to summer camp when you were younger, sir?”

There was a lull where it almost seemed like Taako was ignoring him, until he realized he was looking him over beneath his huge sunglasses. “Those uniforms gender-neutral?” He asked, and Angus had to think about it. He remembered checking Mavis’s closet in the guest room to see if her uniform would fit him any better, but because of their age gap it was still too big. Identical to his, though, shorts and all. He nodded.

Taako clicked his tongue, but was nonchalant as ever in his curt explanation of, “Weren’t back in our day,” and offered nothing else.

Angus knew a sore subject when he saw it, so he didn’t prod further. There was still about a quarter mile to town, and now the silence felt heavier. Conversations with Taako were always an obstacle course to navigate, but he still felt bad whenever they got cut short or ended awkwardly.

It seemed to be wearing on Taako too, because he spoke up again a few minutes later. “We could, uh,” He cleared his throat. “Y’know. Make a campfire if you want. Later, maybe? You’ll have to do all the work, I dunno jack about how to build those things.” He waved a hand when Angus beamed up at him. “Just to get away from the icicle hell Merle’s been brewing. Taako just wants to get toasty warm and maybe not die of hypothermia tonight. Don’t want you thinkin’ I’m being selfless or anything.”

“Of course not, sir,” Angus bit back a smile, “I’d never dream of calling you selfless.”

“Is that cheek I hear, Agnes?” Taako gasped in mock offense. “Weird, ‘cuz I think I’m the one who controls bedtime, and right now it’s lookin’ to be campfire o’clock. You watch from the window as I eat all the ‘mallows and enjoy the rad fire hazard in the front yard all by myself.”

“But you don’t know how to build a campfire?” Angus pointed out with a grin.

“Details, details—” Taako waved him off again. “Fine, I’ll get you to build it first, and _then_ you can go to bed.” Angus laughed then, and he could see Taako fighting back his own grin. “I’m serious! Don’t try me!” But there was no bite to his words. He ruffled Angus’s hair a bit too hard, but it didn’t deter the next round of giggles.

After that, the energy died down to something quiet, but content. The small residential area that opened up onto the main commercial district was within sight now, and the ambience of nature was giving way to the sound of unseen children playing in a backyard and the distant growl of a lawnmower. The final stretch of the road dipped down a shallow hill just before branching into streets in the town proper, and from their vantage point he could see the unbroken, teardrop-shaped perimeter of the forest that formed snugly around the town, the dense thicket barely yards away from where fences ended. Not a single building in town rose past three storeys tall to challenge the view.

Taako seemed to get more tense as they approached, but the changes in his posture were minute and controlled enough that it was only noticeable because they were walking close enough to brush arms. Angus supposed maybe this was the first time he’d gone into town proper since he’d arrived, and maybe even since he’d moved. That would explain why he got dressed up for the occasion. But if he was anxious, he didn’t vocalize it. Instead, he balanced the umbrella on his shoulder and stretched his arms wide, motioning out over the town square that they were quickly approaching on.

“I’d like to _humbly_ welcome you to my old digs, Angie,” he declared too loudly, catching the attention of other pedestrians, some of which seemed to startle from recognition. Head held high, he looked over the bridge of his glasses and whistled. “And not a _damn thing_ has changed since I bailed, from the looks of it! S’like this dump is frozen in time. Not too surprisin’, though— anyone with an ounce of innovation or taste gets the hell outta here the moment they can. These storefronts’ll crumble before anyone lifts a finger to bring them into the twenty-first century.” He made a point of flicking the worn brickwork of the laundromat as they passed, cursing when— _duh_ —it hurt.

Angus looked out over the square lined with businesses thoughtfully. There was just the bare minimum of amenities to make the town livable without too many frills, but there was something quaint about it. “I don’t know, sir,” he tilted his head, still observing. “I think it’s got a… rustic charm?”  

Taako lowered his glasses only to show him that he was rolling his eyes. “Gods, you’re just as bad as Maggie.” He muttered, a hint of a smile in his voice.

Taako gave him a small and unceremonious tour that was half pointing out what buildings were, and half complaining about the people who worked there. Past the laundromat was a barbershop, a butcher’s, and a few more unremarkable small shops that prompted him to recount a harrowing and morally ambiguous tale (apparently the shop owners were, quote, _"lowlife jerks who deserved to get stolen from"_ , end quote) about his grand heist for a pair of cheap earrings for Lup’s birthday when they were fifteen—again, too loudly, and Angus ducked his head when an old woman tending the flowers outside of a general store glared daggers at them. Taako seemed unphased, however.

“And that,” He pointed to a large and ornate building with two entrances across from the fountain in the center of the square. It looked incredibly old, but well-kept. “—is where you’ll wanna be heading. On the left, up the stairs. Other side is city hall.”

As they approached, he could see that ‘LIBRARY’ was etched into the stone above the large double doors, too eroded from time to make out clearly from a further distance. Taako stopped walking when they reached the sidewalk—a detail he only noticed when the shade of the umbrella did not follow him. He turned towards him, squinting through the sun. “You’re not coming, sir?”

“Gotta stop with that ‘sir’ crap while we’re in public, kid, people are gonna get the wrong idea.” He chided, but Angus could tell he was fretting about something else. “But, uh— nah. Hard pass here. Don’t really feel like testing whether or not Lulu’s lifetime ban extends to me on this one.”

Angus stared at the stone front of the library, and then back again in awe and horror as the implication dawned on him. “Really? The _library?_ ” He managed.

“Half of the young adults section, up in flames,” he nodded sagely. “And now she’s a teacher and gets to, uh, rag on bad heteronormative garbage novels with her words instead of arson, so like. There’s some atonement there? I guess?”

“I don’t think that’s how it works.” He pursed his lips.

“Yeah, well, the librarian won’t buy it either, so I guess you’re on your own.” Taako idly twirled the umbrella and motioned for him to get a move on. “I’ll probably be at The Davy Lamp if you get out early. It’s on the corner over there,” he nodded over his shoulder to a dated saloon-styled building. “Otherwise I’ll come collect you around four. We good?”

“All good, s- Taako.” He corrected, giving a thumbs up. Taako gave a short wave before turning on his heel and strutting off on the opposite direction. He watched curiously as heads turned in the wake of Taako’s path, even when he wasn’t shouting obnoxious things. It was much more obvious now that he wasn’t standing right beside him, and felt separate from the notoriety Taako claimed to have, more onlookers staring in reverence than in malice.

He forced himself to tear his eyes away from the violet umbrella as it bobbed and weaved through the square and filed the clue away for later, turning now to the task at-hand. There was a lot he hoped to accomplish today, and he was feeling good about his chances.

With a deep breath, he pushed past the imposing double doors of the library.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay. well! promising release dates was a mistake. I forgot what a busy month may is. sorry about that! :') 
> 
> [I've updated my pseud to match my art blog](http://petalade.tumblr.com), since I've been posting TAZ art there and keeping the two separate is kind of pointless now. I'm probably going to post my doodles from this fic there sooner or later too, so like. if you're itching to see what Angus's ETA uniform looks like, stay turned for that? I guess? 
> 
> The next update will hopefully be soooooner rather than later!
> 
> [EDIT 8/24/18]: corrected a typo and changed a paragraph break that was bothering me, sorry if you got a notif!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angus visits the library. Taako hasn't been home in a while.

The stale breeze filtering through the lobby’s rattling vents was the first thing to greet him once he was inside. It was a welcome reprieve from the summer heat that had become nearly unbearable two-thirds of the way through their walk.

Angus pulled at his button-up in the places where it clung uncomfortably with sweat and took a moment to look around. At first glance, the place was… certainly different from the library in his city, but the dingy atmosphere matched much of what he’d seen of the rest of town. He could almost hear Taako mocking the aesthetics and sarcastically lamenting that the nerds deserved better.

Everything was stone tile and dark mahogany paneling from floor to ceiling, in negligible states of disrepair in the places that seemed to get the most foot traffic from patrons. Framed certificates, tarnished plaques and cluttered display cabinets with their own thick layers of dust lined the right wall of the lobby—most likely artifacts spilt over from the town hall that Taako mentioned being next door. A narrow flight of stairs to the left of the lobby was blocked off by a rope with an arrow sign directing visitors inwards instead. Since the stairs were outside of the vantage point of the circulation desk further in, he figured that the upper floors were probably storage space rather than a part of the library itself.

The lobby bottlenecked into a short corridor with a low ceiling. Immediately past the reception counter in the center, he could see that the corridor opened up into one enormous chamber with a high vaulted ceiling, lined with rows upon rows of bookshelves in some semblance of an order. There didn't seem to be anyone else around except for an older man sitting behind the desk. He looked up from the book he was rebinding and offered a bland smile as he approached.

“Good afternoon, sir.” He said first, wasting no time in walking right up to the desk. He tried to ignore the fact that the height of it nearly came up to his chest as he fished the proper ID from his pocket and promptly maneuvered it onto the counter.

The librarian quirked a brow before it clicked. “Ah. First time here?” He looked from the documents to Angus, expression settled into something more neutral. “Normally, you’d need a guardian present to apply for a library card.”

Angus deflated a bit. “But,” the librarian continued, regarding his uniform, “since you’re a guest of our town, it would be impolite to turn you away.” There was a glint of a smile in his eyes as Angus’s rose to meet them.

“Oh, um— thank you!” The librarian chuckled good-naturedly and proceeded to pull out some forms that needed to be filled for their system.

He helped Angus navigate the paperwork, suggesting that he put down the campgrounds’ address as his temporary place of residence in the required field. When all of it was done, the librarian slid a card his way. It was made of plain cardstock rather than laminated, his name at the top scribed in neat handwriting instead of typed. He realized then that he hadn’t seen the librarian use the computer once.

“We haven’t made the move to digital age yet, I’m afraid.” The older man said by way of explanation when he caught Angus staring. “If you need assistance using the card catalogues, please let me know. I can also escort you to the children’s literature, if you’d like—there’s currently a feature on illustrated fairytales that you might enjoy.”

Angus stood a little straighter, cheeks puffed. “I’m _not_ here for dumb picture books.” It came out harsher than he intended, but he was getting tired of people underestimating him.

“My apologies for assuming.” The librarian seemed more amused than offended, thankfully. “Well then, you can keep an eye out for the woman in the blue cardigan if you need help searching for a particular book. She should be tidying somewhere in the non-fiction sections right about now.”

With a polite nod and another word of thanks, Angus left the circulation desk with his new card in hand.

It felt good to finally step through the threshold of the library proper. Dust particles floated through the fluorescent lighting where the sun’s rays from the high windows didn’t quite reach, and there was the comforting, musty smell of aged books wafting from the shelves as he passed. It reminded him of home.

He regarded the rows of spines on eye level with a cursory glance, walking with the confidence of someone who knew exactly where they were going until he was out of the librarian’s sight. He didn’t want to be tailed for looking too lost, as much as he knew that the librarian was only trying to be helpful.

He wandered aisles aimlessly for a while, pointedly steering away from the beginnings of the kiddie section that was denoted by stouter shelves with brightly colored footstools and the perimeter of a worn-out dinosaur print area rug. Gravitating towards the center of the unfamiliar labyrinth, he eventually found himself in what he recognized as a biographies and history section. A good start, but it was all too general. He needed local history, not international affairs. The memorabilia in the lobby suggested that the town cared enough about its heritage to have it documented _somewhere_. He just needed to keep looking.

As he turned the next corner, he collided with another body, sending them both tumbling to the floor.

“Oh _gods_ , I— I’m so sorry. Are you alright?”

The woman seemed frazzled, but genuinely concerned. Blearily, he watched her tuck a lock of stark white hair behind an ear, her other hand gingerly hovering over his shoulder until he recovered enough from his daze to nod. She helped him retrieve his fallen glasses and stand before reaching to re-stack her own books, babbling apologies all the while.

“Really, that was my fault. I should’ve paid attention to where I was going. You could’ve bumped your head on a shelf, or your glasses might’ve…”

She trailed off, taking a good look at him. He took the opportunity to do the same with his glasses back on, and he was surprised to see a youthful face staring back at him. The woman in the blue cardigan looked to be even younger than Taako, but, evidently, old enough to be working at a library.

“Oh, you’re from out of town.” It sounded like she meant it to be a question, but it came out more as a statement. For a moment, he worried that his presence might spark a conflict between the staff regarding membership policy with non-residents—but then she blinked a few times, seeming to catch the oddness of her phrasing.

“Sorry about that, my mind’s all over the place today—I’ve been running around since this morning trying to re-sort the etymology and entomology books after some trickster switched them all,” she offered a shy smile. “I meant to ask if you were from Merle’s camp, but I guess that’s a no-brainer.”

“No worries, ma’am.” He dusted off his shorts and thought to offer a hand, if only to be polite. She accepted it, but stared curiously just past his shoulder.

“Oh, one second. You dropped your card—” She skillfully balanced her books on a knee to bend down and grab it, squinting briefly at the inscription before handing it back. Her smile broadened ever so slightly. “You should be careful not to lose this, Angus. My name is Lucretia. Do you need help finding anything today?”

He looked to the stack of books in her arms. “I don’t want to be a bother if you’re busy,” he insisted.

“Nonsense, it’s part of my job,” Lucretia laughed quietly, mindful of their environment. “Besides that, my sore arms would love any excuse to put these encyclopedias down for a few minutes. You’d actually be doing me a huge favor.”

Normally, he’d be annoyed about being blatantly guilt-tripped into accepting help from adults, but her offer seemed genuine instead of patronizing. Admittedly, progress hadn’t been great so far on his own anyways. He followed her to a nearby table where she set her stack of books down with a sigh of relief, turning back to him while wringing her hands. “Now then—what are we searching for?”

“Um, actually—” His nerves were making him play at meek for some reason, but he supposed wide-eyed and curious was as good an approach as any in a library. “I can’t seem to find any books on local history. Where would those be?”

Lucretia tilted her head and tapped her lip in thought. “Local history, local history…” She muttered to herself. “Let me see… I know we have a box or two of articles on microfilm somewhere in the attic that I haven’t gotten around to archiving on the site yet… they’re pretty old, but I could dig them out, if you’re interested?”

As fascinating as the offer would’ve been to take up in his own time, he had to decline. There was only a little over an hour until Taako came to pick him up, and going through entire boxes sounded like it would take several sessions. Besides that, there was no way of knowing if any of it would be relevant.

“There’s some blurbs about the founding history on the plaques out front, but most of the local lore is word of mouth, I’m afraid.” She smiled apologetically. “A written compilation of those stories would be a welcome addition to our collection, but I suppose nothing terribly exciting has happened around here to really warrant that kind of effort.”

_Or all of the interesting things get covered up_ , he didn’t say. The dead end was frustrating, but he tried not to let it show.

“Do you keep records of family trees, maybe?” He tried instead, but found himself on the receiving end of a very puzzled look.

“Well, marriage records and the like are kept next door…” Lucretia paused a moment, and then shook her head to clear her thoughts. “Sorry, I suppose I misunderstood—I assumed your camp leader might’ve sent you on a wild goose chase for some impossible piece of trivia to get you out of his hair.” Her expression softened. “But if you’re looking into your ancestry, I can go and take a peek for you—McDonald, right?”

Oh. _Crap._

“Nope, that’s okay ma’am!” He fired back much too quickly. Mentally, he cursed the fact that _of course_ the records he needed were next door. So much for that.

He tried to stay optimistic, praying that Taako having better luck with his side of the investigation. There were other leads he could look into, so the day could still be salvaged. First, though, he needed to remedy the current misunderstanding.

He decided to go with her own assumption before he stalled any longer and grasped for the first ridiculous Merle-tested, Merle-approved camp activity that came to mind.

“Actually, uh, you were kind of right.” He smiled sheepishly, leaning fully into the timid child gambit now. “You see, there’s a contest at camp where we have to guess our leader’s age for a prize… and I thought maybe doing research would be a better strategy than just guessing. But, I think this way of going about it is—”

“Intrusive?” Lucretia arched a brow, unimpressed.

“—roundabout, but that works too.”

There was a hesitant lull in her response time where Lucretia looked conflicted about whether or not it was her responsibility to reprimand him for snooping. He was fine with being lectured, but _technically_ he hadn’t misused his library access. After some internal debate, she seemed to reach the same conclusion.

“To be honest, I think I would’ve had the same approach.” She admitted with a sigh. “It’s easy to miss shortcuts when you’re fixated on doing things a certain way—a bad habit, no doubt. I could’ve saved a lot of time in college if someone had set me straight with my research methods.”

“Shortcuts?” He echoed curiously.

Another grin. This time, with a hint of mischief. “Follow me,” she said, hushed, like they were sharing a secret.

The path she took them on appeared aimless and winding, but her long strides were with purpose. He marvelled at how much larger the library floor seemed than he’d initially thought from the outside, making notes of all the sections they passed on their way. He mentally filed away the dozen or so bulky, dated desktop computers sitting back-to-back near the open center of the library for later.

Their eventual destination was one of the far corners at the back of the room, a mismatched sitting area with waist-high shelves sectioning off the individual study spaces. When it didn’t click right away, Lucretia took a thin hardcover off of a shelf at random and held it out expectantly.

_“Yearbooks,”_ he groaned and slapped a hand to his forehead as the oversight finally registered. Of course—why hadn’t he thought of that?

She barely managed to stifle a laugh with her hand, amused rather than teasing. “Certainly easier, right?”

He was already busy thumbing through the yearbook he was handed—1968—but managed to mutter back an awed “yes, ma’am”. This wouldn’t be as thorough as genealogy records, but it was still something.

“These go back quite a ways, so you should be able to find who you’re looking for,” she continued, tracing over the spines of the newer-looking additions at the end of a shelf to his left. “Though, if you wanted to study up for any future pop quizzes on your other camp counsellors,” a lithe hand lingered on one book in particular, gently tugging it free from its tidy alignment with the rest as she caught his eye again. “They should be _somewhere_ in here, too.”

In retrospect, he was glad he hadn’t made up a more outlandish fib, now that Lucretia had more or less explicitly admitted that she knew Merle and the others well—well enough to know which years the latter were in high school, at least, and that wasn’t the kind of information an acquaintance would retain. Thinking back, she’d referred to it as ‘Merle’s camp’ when they’d met, too. The small town phenomenon of everyone knowing one another was still a foreign concept in is city-acclimated brain. He made a mental note to be more careful with white lies involving Merle in case any got back to him.

Angus took the hint and set the previous yearbook down, tucking the one she’d pointed out under his arm once she stepped away from the shelf. “Thanks for all your help,” he said gratefully.

Lucretia smiled. “Not at all. Just remember to ask for help directly next time, okay?”

He felt a twinge of guilt for not being honest with her still, but nodded anyway. With that, she gave a small wave before disappearing back into the heart of the library, leaving him to his own devices.

He sighed a breath of relief once he was finally own, refocusing on his actual task. He swept an armful of yearbooks from the same shelf and stacked them on a beat-up walnut desk, adjusting uncomfortably in the stiff armchair that adjoined it.

He only needed to look at the M’s for each class and year, which was going to make potentially sifting through decades’ worth of yearbooks much easier. There only seemed to be one school in the county, too. The comforting quiet of the library helped ease him into focusing on the monotonous task.

To his surprise, the first Miller appeared nearly as soon as he’d started. Lucas Miller, Class of 2015. It was a good sign, but not worth celebrating prematurely. For all he knew, the Miller name could encompass a huge extended family, and that would create an entirely different conundrum without a family tree to give context to their relations.

He set that book aside, resting it on top of the yearbook that Lucretia had given him. He was doing his best to ignore it in favor of going chronologically, only skimming the M’s with practiced restraint once he reached that year. The temptation gnawed at him, but laughing at candids of the Extreme Teen Adventures crew—and possibly Taako if Miss Lup was in there too, he realized—as awkward teens themselves would be a reward for after he’d completed his arduous search.

As the hour dragged on, the pile of 2010s and 00’s slowly dwindled, and then he was well into the 90’s. A worrying pattern had developed: no new discoveries had been made since his first. Of course, there was a million reasons as to why that might’ve been. At best, it could be a generational gap. At worst, Lucas had been a fluke and he was entirely on the wrong track, with the wrong Miller family pinned. Such a common surname would be easy to dismiss under normal circumstances, if it weren’t for the fact most of the investigation hinged on the murder occurring in a backwater town that most of the residents were born into. He wasn’t sure what they’d do if Maureen _wasn’t_ a native to the town at this point.

It was annoying that most of their foundation was built on _‘if’_ s and guesses right now. Everything was a shot in the dark, and that was the biggest obstacle overall—he knew nearly nothing about Maureen Miller. What he had to work with was her name, and that she had the skeletal structure of an adult when she died.

He’d never given her age much thought, but physically going through years upon years worth of books was putting the span of adulthood in a sobering light. In his mind, the concept of ‘adult’ defaulted towards the younger subset, but was she closer to Merle’s age? His grandfather’s, even? The infinite amount of things Maureen _could_ be was frustrating. There needed to be more, something concrete to ground her existence.

Distracted and tired, he nearly missed her. Mostly because he hadn’t expected to _find_ her. There had been no way to know whether Miller had been her maiden name or if she’d married, but at least that answered _that_.

Blood drummed in his ears as he did a double-take—and a third, and a forth—at the page. He almost couldn’t believe it.

But here she was, at last: Class of 1989.

The blue-eyed gaze of Maureen’s flesh and blood construct in the grainy grad photo felt just as piercing as her skull’s empty sockets’ in the forest that night, intense and… well. _‘Alive’_ wasn’t the right adjective, and haunting felt too on-the-nose. But at the very least, she had a presence that demanded attention in both life and death.

Staring down at the page felt like rediscovering her all over again—the difference was that this time, he could put a face to the victim. He committed her tawny curls and sharp nose to memory, trying to imagine how time might’ve changed her features.

He did some quick math. Class of ‘89 meant she was in her mid-forties when she died, and that gave him a thought. He flipped back to the previous yearbook he’d set aside and slotted the two books together to compare the Millers. Tawny hair, sharp noses, blue eyes.

Twenty-fifteen minus eighteen. Lucas was born in the late nineties, in his early twenties now.

Angus felt his heart skip a beat.

It was true that he didn’t have a clear image of Maureen in his head before now, but he never considered that she might be somebody’s _mother._

A huge grin split his face as a million possibilities crossed his mind. Frankly, it was a _horrible_ theory to get giddy over, and for all the wrong reasons. But he couldn’t help himself. Statistically speaking, it was very likely that Maureen knew her killer. If a spouse was out of the picture, then that meant an adult son would be the next likely suspect.

What threw a wrench in that train of thought was the fact that the police hadn’t thrown Lucas under the bus, which would’ve been much easier than framing it as a suicide. But the motives of Bane and his partner were still a wildcard—Lucas could’ve been blackmailing them for an alibi, for all he knew, or a co-conspirator in whatever went down. At the very least, nothing about this case was clean-cut so far, so it was probably a safe bet that Lucas’s role was just as convoluted as the rest if he was involved. Before he hypothesized anymore, though, he needed to confirm his relation to the victim.

But a _potential suspect_ —given how abysmally his prospects of finding anything were looking when he started, this felt like a huge breakthrough.

Carefully, he put all of the yearbooks back in order, save one. Lucretia never returned to check on his progress, but that was probably for the best.

He decided to delegate the rest of his time to backtracking through the library to find books on his other assigned leads—a few on occult rituals and practices, another few on human anatomy and bone structure. Luckily, there seemed to be a wider selection for these than his initial lead. As the cherry on top, he ventured into the youth section for a Caleb Cleveland title with vaguely similar themes.

“I’m going to try and crack the case in this one with just the synopsis this time,” Angus gleefully explained at the circulation desk upon presenting a disturbing combination of books that were decidedly _not_ the fairytales the librarian had recommended earlier in the day. The librarian seemed perplexed, but decided not to comment outside of a few pleasantries.

Once everything was said and done, he took a seat on the sun-warmed steps outside and waited for Taako, his new stack of borrowed books towering at his side. He idly thumbed through the yearbook he’d successfully snuck out, too distracted by the new clue to really appreciate the gem in his hands now—though seeing a rounder, younger Magnus sporting the exact same facial hair that he wore well into adulthood did succeed in shaking his thoughts momentarily with laughter.

In the end, all he’d done was trade one name for another, but at least Lucas Miller was a more tangible trail to follow than the breadcrumbs of a dead woman. Angus didn’t have the details of _how_ to go about it figured out yet, but one thing felt certain: if Lucas really was Maureen’s son, then speaking with him was a top priority.

 

* * *

 

Okay, so _maybe_ downplaying how uncool he was with being in public had been a mistake.

Maybe Merle would’ve stopped pushing him to go out if he was just honest about his feelings for like, two goddamn seconds in his life, and then he wouldn’t have been saddled with herding a _literal_ extreme pre-teen adventurer in the first place, badges and khakis and penchant for solving murders and all.

And yeah, making a game out of his issues instead of levelling with the half-pint probably wasn’t helping in the long run, either. Because now there was the expectation that this was going to become a regular thing when he could hardly handle it being a _one-time_ thing.

It wasn’t exactly a surprise that the backlash was so widespread, considering all the coverage. Sources told him that a pretty penny had been spent to ensure the smear campaign was thorough enough that he’d have a tough time laying low anywhere in the country for at least a couple years.

Home, though? Home was where everyone already had their biases locked in _before_ shit hit the fan. Only tens of people compared to the tens of thousands gawking at him in the city, sure, but he couldn’t tell if half the sneers he got here were about him being _Taako, from TV_ or _Taako, the little hellion who trashed my yard once and finally got what’s coming to him—_ and somehow? That was even worse.

Which he already knew would be the case, _Merle_ , which was why he’d fought tooth and nail to stay holed up indoors his entire vacation before the kid showed up. But he was the one omitting details, so it wasn’t like any of this was the kid’s fault—

Except it kind of _was_ , because the brat was one-hundred percent lying about his grandfather not being home, all so he could sleuth his way around what was either an elaborate hoax, or a grand conspiracy—Taako hadn’t placed his bets either way yet—which was way above his pay grade as a half-baked nanny, even if it _was_ the coolest thing to happen in this town basically ever (Lup was going to _lose her mind_ when she found out, and he could only hope it was in the ecstatic, non-fratricidal sort of way).

Point was, he didn’t have to be stuck babysitting Sherlock Jr. at all. This little problem could disappear itself if he just went to Merle, easy-peasy. Then he could get back to an idyllic summer spent couch surfing and being dead to the world.

Infuriatingly, though, he had to stay true to his word: Taako was no snitch. Moral compass to uphold or whatever. Which was— rare? And _annoying_ , in this case. Anyone else, and he wouldn’t hesitate to dip.

But breaking a promise with an eleven-year-old just wouldn’t sit right. If his own shitty childhood had taught him anything, he wasn’t about to become that one adult who gives the kid trust issues for life. Brat was stubborn enough to keep at it alone even if he nixed their little operation anyway, so it was better to keep an eye on him to make sure he didn’t do anything stupid.

Not that he cared or anything, _hell no._

Contrary to the fact that he was sticking around, in spite of the nagging itch to make a beeline back to the safety of the cottage the moment he was alone—another kindness possibly tapped from the neglected piece of his conscience that also promised the kid a _campfire_ in the spur of the moment, and what the hell was he thinking with that one? Next they’d be singing Kumbaya and braiding daisy chains into Merle’s hippie beard or whatever they did for fun around here, which, gross.

As if this gig wasn’t off-brand enough without getting all _attached,_ too.

But whatever. He was already going above and beyond the bare minimum of his obligations for the day, so if that promise went unfulfilled, he couldn’t complain. Little nerd would probably have his nose buried in books all night, anyway.

Taako managed to soldier on and out of the square in runway strides, umbrella clutched close to block out that much more of the world around him. Even acknowledging the lingering attention was making him nauseous, though the heat was probably at least partially to blame. Retching in a flowerbed would _not_ be a good look, though, and even though he was pretty sure no journos had followed him so far out into the middle of nowhere, he wasn’t about to give any of _these_ chucklefucks more ammunition.

The tunnel vision created by the canopy of the umbrella did mean he had to fruitlessly swivel a full 180 on his heels in search of the voice hollering his name once he crossed the street, however. Someone he knew, definitely, but being a magnet for rowdy freeloaders meant that there were at least half a dozen guesses in the pool of local acquaintances who would scream his name three decibels above public disturbance levels only a block away from the police station, not even accounting for all of the jocks who knew him through Lup.

Whoever it was could clearly see _him_ , though, so he meandered into the shade and waited for their approach instead. As it turned out, he was facing the wrong direction entirely and jumped when a wet snout pressed against the backs of his knees.

“Hey, T! What’s up?”

The force of a genial pat on the back from Magnus Burnsides was enough knock the wind out of dudes twice his size, let alone unfortunate souls who were only half that.

Taako gracelessly staggered forward with a choked gasp, shooting a glare over his shoulder at Magnus as he mumbled some apology about twenty-five percent strength. He flashed a silly grin that instantly dissolved any annoyance Taako possibly could’ve feigned, his own lips curling in turn—not that he’d ever admit it, but he couldn’t be more relieved to see anyone else after the day he’d been having.

Spending time with Magnus these days was so easy and familiar. He was the only person in his life not casting pitying sidelong glances or treating him like something fragile, because he _got it_. He’d been there, and the same couldn’t be said for many others. Hell, even his own sister got on his nerves more often than not, lately. But with Magnus, there were no hard questions to deflect or impromptu heart-to-hearts—just good, dumb fun, like they were back in high school. Like Taako never left.

Sure, it probably wasn’t the healthiest way of dealing with things. But it was a nice distraction, and that was something they both needed right now. Maybe it was just nice to have someone to _pretend_ with.

The past six years hadn’t been kind to either of them, but he wasn’t about broach any heavy topics and ruin something good, no matter how many _looks_ and off-handed lectures about healing Merle gave around the dinner table.

Right now, he was just glad to have his best friend back.

Taako found himself pulled into a hug with the arm that wasn’t snaked around a rainbow of leashes, which he awkwardly returned for only a few seconds less than what was deemed socially acceptable before pulling away in the very real fear that the sticky humidity would fuse them together at the chest. Nine pairs of beady eyes were staring curiously between them from where they sat and lounged on the sidewalk.

“Quite the mutt squad you’ve got here,” Taako flippantly gestured with the toe of his boot to the misfit pack who were, to the credit of Magnus’s training, doing their best not crowd him at this very moment. “You stealing pups from their yards now, Maggie? Any criminal tendencies we gotta quash before you move on to the kennel next?”

Magnus barked out a laugh, and a few of the more excitable dogs grew restless at the sound. Like it was second nature, he waved them back down without looking away from Taako.

“Nah, no dognapping needed! Puppy camp’s been a real hit all on its own.”

He rubbed at the back of his neck with his free hand under the pressure of Taako’s scrutiny, a goofy, nervous smile breaking onto his face. “Okay, well—our friends surrendered their dogs to me, at least.”

_Your friends,_ he would’ve corrected if that wasn’t the quickest way to get Magnus looking like a kicked puppy himself. Okay, maybe he was a _little_ bitter that no one else in their old circle besides Magnus had bothered visiting him since he’d been back.

“This little fella here is Kil n’ Carey’s boy,” Magnus leaned down to affectionately pet what had to be the largest saint bernard Taako had ever seen in his life. He gestured for Taako to offer a hand, which he did reluctantly, but not before warning, “if that beast eats one of my rings I am _suing the cargo shorts_ offa you, Burnsides.”

No personal effects were harmed in the interaction though, if slobbered on a bit. He was introduced to the rest of the pack in a similar fashion, doing his best not to wobble on his heels as he bent to greet a particularly yappy shih tzu who apparently belonged to an old rugby coach or something.

Taako couldn’t be bothered to remember the dogs’ names or any of the accompanying anecdotes, but Magnus didn’t seem to mind—he seemed happy enough just to be talking to a non-canine, which, _yikes_ , how dead was his social life when the Fangbattles were on vacation normally?

After being helped back up, he wiped a streak of slobber across the front of Magnus’s tee with a grimace. Between this and juggling kiddy contagions, hand sanitizer was on the list of things he needed _stat_.

Magnus didn’t bat an eye at the motion, still rambling about how hard it was to balance exercise and keep the bigger dogs from overheating, but he couldn’t just leave half of the pack at home alone, so they’d just have to figure out how to work as a team, and it’d sure be nice if puppy camp had more helpers, if he knew anyone, _wink wink_ . Both winks encompassed him saying wink _and_ the action itself. “Win-k.”

Taako looked down at his own hands in poorly feigned shock. “Oh _shit_ , Mags, I don’t think I’m cut out for this—my own pup’s flown the coop, leash and all. How _horrible_. What’ll I ever _do_.”

Magnus laughed. “Oh right, Merle said you’ve got Ango.” He stopped and looked around, brow furrowing. “ _Had_ Ango.” He corrected. “Uh, where’d you leave him? You didn’t actually lose a kid, right?”

“Relax,” Taako patted a sweat-sheened bicep. “Nerdlet’s in his natural habitat right now, surrounded by books and knowledge and shit. Air conditioning too, if he’s lucky. Couldn’t exactly follow him in, y’know— thanks to—”

_“Lup,”_ they both wistfully concluded at the same time. Magnus nodded, tension easing from his shoulders.

“Well, these guys’re pretty tuckered out already. I’m gonna get them a drink before we head back home. You coming?”

Taako looked back at the Davy Lamp a crosswalk away before shrugging. “As long as we stick to the shade, m’guess.” Well, bullying Ren could wait a few more minutes.

Magnus took that request to heart and made a game of sticking to the shadows as faithfully as the sun would allow—which was cute, but it also meant walking an extra block to get to the hardware store that apparently doubled as a canteen for dogs, and Taako’s feet didn’t like that very much. Skimping out on insoles was just another mistake on his long list of immediate regrets, and he couldn’t help but wince at the _squish_ in each step as the toes of his boots began pooling with what he could only hope was just sweat. Dressing down when they got home was going to be an _event_.

He was tempted to just shuck his boots right now in favor of going barefoot the rest of the way, but even if grotesque blisters weren’t awaiting him underneath the dark leather, it’d been ages since his last pedicure, and honestly? The added height of the heels always did _wonders_ when it came to staring fools down.

Speaking of.

“G’afternoon, Hazel!” Magnus bellowed to a stout woman with long, silvery braids sweeping what looked to be sawdust from the porch of a storefront. Familiar with the routine, the dogs darted to the huge bowl of water already set aside in the shade for them when they came within range, Magnus allowing the leashes to slacken in his grip.

“I was wondering when you lot would arrive today,” her eyes crinkled in a knowing smile as they rose to meet Magnus’s, but instantly cycled through at least twelve variations of stunned horror at the sight of Taako.

_“Hazel,”_ he drawled with a lazy grin, all teeth, relishing in her reaction. “S’been a while—what’s good? Growing any petunias this year? Begonias, maybe? Store still in the red?”

“Taako.” Not taking the bait, her expression evened out into a forced smile, tone clipped. “Your father didn’t mention you were back. So _good_ to see you.”

It was funny. He couldn’t even remember ever tormenting her directly—never had much of a reason to swipe from a hardware store when his best friend’s family had a stacked woodworking shop in their backyard, really.

But maybe Lup did, because Hazel was one of the more _vocal_ members of the PTA when they were young. Always a vigilant extension of Bane’s surveillance, hellbent on keeping them from tainting the _good_ children with their influence. If they were anywhere near her yard by the time the streetlights flickered on, Hazel was always sure to make a few phone calls.

Of the movements spearheaded by her posse, having the gall to try and petition that someone else’s kids be sent to _reform school_ probably took the cake. Dav took it like a champ, thankfully, good humor and all—in lieu of a formal response, he’d framed the offending letter and put it on display somewhere on the cluttered back walls of the bar without another word, much to the chagrin of PTA members whenever they visited.

Gods only knew what she thought of him now, but his opinion of her hadn’t changed a bit.

Magnus shot him a warning look with no real heat behind it, but it was fine. He wasn’t about to start shit if it meant nine dogs would potentially lose a watering hole, he wasn’t a _monster_. That, and he always felt bad when Magnus’s rep got dragged through the mud just for associating with him and his antics. That was in the past. He was _mature_ and _respectful_ and could adult just as well as anyone else could adult, thank-you-very-much.

Taking the high road in this case meant chipping away at the paint on his thumbnail and keeping his mouth shut while they chatted away, even though there were buttons just _begging_ to be pushed. Like, she made it so _easy_. He managed to only snicker once at the mention of her third divorce though (the taunt of _“was that one Cedric, or Roger?”_ on the tip of his tongue) and that was probably what cut the conversation short and earned him the stink-eye, but overall? A successful interaction in his books.

“Good boy,” Magnus sang at him once Hazel retreated back inside. Taako wrinkled his nose and flipped him off as Magnus wrangled in the herd, who he assured were all good boys, too, before they started off again.

“So what time d’you gotta go get Ango? How’s he doing, by the way? You should bring him over one of these days!”

Taako shrugged. “In like, an hour or something. And I dunno. He’s alive? Last time I checked, anyway.”

Couldn’t exactly start up with the whole, _s’all hunky-dory, Mango, he’s just going through a true crime phase—and by the way, what the hell’s up with that?_

He was curious, don’t get him wrong. But he had promised moderate subtlety to his partner, and getting into all that with Magnus was… well, he just _couldn’t_. Not when there were so many other things they weren’t talking about.

The dude was surrounded by puppies right now and seemed to be doing genuinely well, actually _happy_ , and from what he’d heard from Merle, it took a long time to reach this point.

So no, he wasn’t gonna burst his bubble of calm and drag up old trauma just to sate the kid’s curiosity. Better to let sleeping dogs lie and all that noise.

Magnus hummed, considering. “He should be fine. I don’t really think anybody’s died at the library before. Oh, except that one dude who died eating library paste— didja ever see that post?”

Before Taako could ask what in fresh hell he was talking about, Magnus switched gears, a bright grin splitting his face as he bounced on his heels eagerly. “Oh! Oh oh _oh_ — that reminds me! Lucy’s working over there now— at the library! We should all chill together sometime!”

Taako stopped dead in his tracks. Squinted—lowered his glasses for effect, _then_ squinted—up at Magnus like he had three extra heads. Magnus had to backtrack by a few steps against the pull of the dogs, gleeful optimism still hanging in the air.

_“Lucy?”_

“Yeah?”

“Lucretia.”

“Yeah, Taako, that’s her name.”

“She— like, _this_ town? The library in this town, here, specifically.”

“Has been for a while!”

He puffed his cheeks and blew a strand of hair from his face after a beat of silence. _"Fuck,”_ he muttered under his breath. He wasn’t sure who he was mad at, but he was _mad_.

“Uh.” Magnus’s grin fell. “Sorry, did you guys have a fight or something?”

“What? God, _no,_ ” Taako’s face scrunched like _that_ was the most ridiculous conclusion he could’ve jumped to. Magnus raised his hands in defense and gave Taako the time to collect the jumble of thoughts that were sputtering out of his face indecipherably.

“I just—” He crossed his arms. Uncrossed them. Fiddled with a ring. Twirled his umbrella. _Sighed_.

“None of this was part of the _plan._ ” He settled on finally.

He didn’t need to articulate any better than that. Magnus already knew everything about the plan— hell, _everyone_ did, because neither of them would _shut up_ about it when they were kids.

It was simple: by now, he was supposed to be well on his way to building a multimedia brand empire, the show a mere stepping stone on his climb to international fame and glory. And—once she got out of school at the top of her class—Luce was supposed to join him as his exclusive publicist, raking in enough from royalties to fund the writing ventures she actually wanted to pursue on her way to becoming a prolific author. Cozy enough to provide for their friends and families, all while getting the recognition they deserved.

A life in the limelight was a naive dream, maybe, but not impossible, if only because it was  _them_ and they could do anything they set their minds to. At least, that’s what it felt like.

But the fact that she was restocking bookshelves in this crapsack town instead of interviewing Goldcliff elites and building her portfolio meant the world had screwed _her_ over in some way, too.

No one had even told him she’d left the city, is the thing. He had no idea anything was _wrong_. Her campus was a fifteen minute drive away from his flat for years, and he’d still let their relationship slip away before he had any real excuse of being too busy to see her. He should’ve checked up on her more often, should’ve called.

This was stupid. This _sucked_.

“Aw, Taako.” Magnus gave him a surprisingly featherlight pat on the shoulder. “There’s no shame in coming back home to recharge, y’know? Nobody thinks you guys failed or anything. You still have plenty of time to make the dream come true!”

“I _didn’t_ fail,” He agreed with more venom than necessary. He shrunk away from Magnus’s hand and pushed his shades back in place, expression morphing into practiced indifference as they continued walking. Magnus didn’t press further, perhaps sensing that _that_ particular f-word was a sensitive topic.

“Guess we should throw a reunion party or something once Lulu comes up, huh?” Taako took it upon himself to halfheartedly redirect the conversation.

“Just the old crew, no one else. Maybe get Dav to close the bar one night—gotta take up the chance to celebrate the miracle of us all bein’ in the same place _despite_ the shitty circumstances that stuck us here.”

“Uh.” Mangus laughed nervously as Taako shot him a _look_.

“Burnsides, I swear,” he groaned, “if you leave me in suspense a moment longer I am going to _combust_. Go on and share whatever other horrible news you have with the class.”

“Well, uh.” He started rifling through a deep pocket for his keys as they reached the end of the street and curved onto an unpaved road that was bordered by a thicket of trees on one side. An obvious stall, considering they were still a ways from his house.

“Like, don’t get me wrong, that sounds great and all! But. You might have to extend that invitation a _little_ bit. To-ooo...”

Magnus stretched out the syllable, fiddling mindlessly with a keychain that looked like it was meant to be a fishing lure. He was looking everywhere but at Taako when he finally spat out, “... Lucy’s boyfriend-and-maybe-fiancé?”

Of the addendums Magnus could’ve possibly had to his impromptu bomb-ass party plan, he thought he might make a case for the inclusion of barbecue—not _our resident wallflower is maybe getting married to some dude we don’t know so we should probably also hang out with him too I guess_.

“What the _fuck,_ ” Taako breathed after a moment, voice cracking. “But she’s— she’s _gay_.”

“I mean, dunno,” Magnus shrugged, looking stupidly thoughtful. “I think of it more as a fluid thing. Like, love who you love, y’know? As long as she’s safe and happy—”

“Great. _Cool_. Excellent. Good talk.” He wasn’t about to get into a deep philosophical conversation about sexuality with _Magnus Burnsides_ because that was so _besides the point_ it wasn’t even _funny._

The point was that he _knew_ Lucretia. Or at least, he’d _known_ her.  

They were close, once. Close enough to share these kinds of things. Growing up, he’d been her shoulder to cry on, her confidant, the person she trusted to proofread her sappy poetry and deliver her love letters to his sister—and she’d do all the same for him in a heartbeat.

It wasn’t like he was mad that she’d switched sides or whatever. It was _good_ that she’d finally moved on from Lup.

He was just pissed that he didn’t know _anything_ about his friends’ lives anymore, that he’d made himself so unavailable to them that he had to learn about engagements and big moves through the grapevine like some stranger.

Taako finally realized that he was mad at _himself_ for being such a fairweather asshole for so many years. No one else was to blame for how out of the loop he was but _him._

“So what’s this thug’s name? What’s he like?” He croaked in a voice that didn’t sound like his own when the conversation lulled for too long. He was tired as all hell suddenly, emotional exhaustion hitting him like a sack of bricks.

“I think it’s like, Louis? Lenny? Never met the guy.” _That_ set off a bunch of alarms. “I heard he works from home or something and doesn’t get out much. He’s from here, though! Wonder if he n’ Luce reconnected in the city?”

Taako hummed in response, pretending to mull over what might’ve spurred the romance. Frankly, he didn’t really care to guess. He just wanted to go back to Merle’s and _sleep_ for a week, minimum. Thankfully, they were on Magnus’s porch before he felt obligated to force himself to speak again.

But _oh—_

If his brain hadn’t been completely reduced to mush in the past five minutes, he probably would’ve had the sense to part ways back on the main street. Because just behind Magnus’s front door was the sum of everything he _wasn’t saying,_ and Taako felt like he was going to be sick just catching a glimpse of it.

The cedar craftsman bungalow at the end of the road had always been too big for just one man, ever since it was built by-hand by its sole occupant not even a decade ago.

It wasn’t too big in the same way Merle’s place was.

While Merle’s cottage was versatile to accommodate an array of guests coming and going at any given time, Magnus’s six-bedroom bungalow had deliberately been constructed with a much more personal means to an end in mind—

A promise that it would one day become a _home,_ excessive space filled to the brim with joy and memories and _family_.

You could see it on the large mantel that only housed a candle enshrined altar now, and in the built-in shoe cubby with rows upon rows of unoccupied shelves that still held a well-worn pair of woman’s sneakers tucked into one of the bottom alcoves, gathering dust.

The void that Julia left behind swelled into every cranny like murky floodwater, a constant, visceral reminder of her absence.

It was easy to forget she was gone, sometimes. Taako had caught himself talking about her in present-tense before, wondering what Jules would think of the gaudy crown molding in a suite he was staying in before reality hit him like a splash of ice water.

But Magnus? Magnus could never forget, not even for a moment. Because _this_ was what he came home to every single day.

Yet here he was, consoling _Taako_ about some career setbacks as if his own future hadn't been irreparably torn away from him.

“Wanna come in? I think I have some of that instant iced tea stuff made up in the fridge.”

A better friend probably would’ve stayed. A _decent person_ would’ve put their tour on hold to go to the funeral in the first place, or dropped everything to help in the search and rescue efforts before that.

But Taako had already proven that he was neither of those things, so he did what he did best—

Bolted the moment an opportunity to escape presented itself.

~~~

There was a dull buzzing in his ears to match the ache in his chest as he stumbled his way back up the dirt road, the bitter taste of bile lingering on the back of his tongue.

He was just about ready to say _screw it_ to the rest of the afternoon and drink himself stupid on Merle’s tab, urge to drown out his own thoughts for a couple of hours vastly outweighing any fear of being chewed out at this point.

It was a wallowing kind of day, he’d already decided. Dealing with anyone else’s guilt-ridden baggage was gonna tip him over the edge, and paparazzi or no, he didn’t care to find out what the consequences of a full theatrics breakdown in the middle of public would entail.

Besides, the kid could get back on his own just fine anyway—hardly needed a babysitter to begin with.

As he pondered how many strawberry daiquiris Ren would let him have at half past three before he had to hop the bar and start serving himself, the Davy Lamp came into view again. He slowed to a stop and clicked his tongue, muttering several colorful profanities under his breath. Gods, was he _not_ in the mood for this right now.

But unless he wanted to slink through the back alley and climb in a through a window like some cat burglar (doable, but not ideal), he’d have to address the very real obstacle loitering around the front entrance.

Said obstacle was pacing and forth in an even tempo, bags of luggage strewn at their feet, taking up most of the narrow strip of pavement between the tavern’s wall and the parking meters.

_Great. Cool, cool. Don’t get movin’ or anything, bud, defos ain’t a total nuisance claiming all the free sidewalk real estate like that._

The stranger’s dark eyes kept roaming from the Davy Lamp’s hours of operation sign down to his pocket watch—an _actual bonafide goddamn pocket watch,_ chain and all—occasionally darting up to catch a pedestrian’s gaze before faltering, obviously lost and trying to work up the courage to ask for assistance.

Nobody paid him any mind though, probably because the dude screamed _tourist_ with how out of place he was, dressed to the nines in a sharp three-piece suit and tie in the middle of a heatwave—the brand of the former Taako could’ve have fun sussing out from the cut alone, if his patience wasn’t already completely spent.

This should’ve been _Ren’s_ problem to deal with, because _Ren_ was the one locking the doors on her breaks, and he was too tired and miserable to be civil right now. Her ranking on his list of favorite people was plummeting by the second, a fact he was very much ready to shove in her face right after demanding compensation booze for his inconvenience.

Taako found himself on the receiving end of one of these increasingly desperate gazes after a while and, well, it wasn’t the greatest solution, but it’d do. He pushed his sunglasses back to unobscure his face, hoping maybe the guy’d back off once he realized whose path he was standing in the way of. There was chance he’d get all riled up instead—it’d happened before. But either was fine. Throwing fists with some douchebag would be a good way to relieve some stress, too.

Attention locked at an awkward fifteen feet apart, a full minute passed without a spark of recognition crossing the stranger’s face. That blindsided him a bit. He lifted his umbrella and wandered closer to be sure it wasn’t a distance thing, gauging, waiting—but still, nothing came of it. Either the dude had a poker face of steel, or—

Or he actually didn’t have a _clue_ who Taako was.

This stranger—a  _handsome_ stranger, he noted now that he wasn't actively thinking of ways to get rid of him—might’ve very well been the only blank slate over 4’0” in a hundred mile radius who didn't have his entire story. Had no reason to judge him, beyond some maybe-qualms about casual day drinking. Seeking help on the door of his family's establishment, no less.

Huh.

Yeah, maybe this distraction would do instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the wait! switching POVs was harder than I thought it would be—mostly because I didn't know what kind of tone I wanted to hit on with Taako's whole situation, so that took a few rewrites. I regret doing a hit on Maggie... next AU I will atone for my crimes and let Julia live...
> 
> original minor characters are now in the mix! I felt like that's an easier way of populating the town instead of trying to fit a bunch of canon npcs into background roles. obviously some canon npcs were introduced this chapter (or at least mentioned) too, though!
> 
> _but while you fret over lucas, who knows what kind of dastardly deeds the shih tzu from puppy camp is up to? /s_
> 
> (here's some [chapter 3 art](http://petalade.tumblr.com/post/176145246964/) of the boys btw!)


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